Juilliard Welcomes Six New Members to the College Division String Faculty

Juilliard is pleased to announce the appointment of six distinguished artists to the College Division string faculty, beginning in the fall semester.

Award-winning violinist Stella Chen, three-time Grammy-winning violinist Hilary Hahn, esteemed violinist and pedagogue Midori, principal associate concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and Pre-College faculty member Sheryl Staples, and first violinist and founding member of the Brentano Quartet Mark Steinberg are joining the violin faculty. In addition, Nina Lee, celebrated cellist of the Brentano Quartet, will join the cello faculty.

These appointments are the result of comprehensive international searches led by Music Division faculty committees and the Office of the Provost. Each new faculty member brings unique perspectives and a wealth of experience to the school.

“With the addition of these distinguished artists, we add to the depth and breadth of instruction we offer our students,” says David Ludwig, dean and director of the Music Division. “These new faculty members share a passion for mentoring the next generation of musicians to achieve their fullest potential as young artists.”

Welcome to Juilliard!

Stella Chen

Praised for her “silken grace” and “brilliant command” (The Strad), American violinist Stella Chen (DMA ’21, violin) captured international attention as the winner of the 2019 Queen Elizabeth International Violin Competition. Soon after, she was named a recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and a Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award. Her debut album, Stella x Schubert, was released in 2023 on Apple Music’s Platoon label to critical acclaim, garnering her the title of young artist of the year at the Gramophone Awards.

A deeply passionate performer and educator, Chen brings her experience and authenticity to both the concert stage and teaching studio. She has performed across North America, Europe, and Asia in concerto, recital, and chamber music settings, appearing as a soloist with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Brussels Philharmonic, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Her appearances have taken her to iconic venues such as the Vienna Musikverein, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and Berlin Philharmonie. Also a devoted chamber musician and recitalist, she has recently appeared at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Phillips Collection, and leading festivals including Kronberg Academy, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, and The Perlman Music Program. She appears frequently with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York and on tour.

Chen is a member of the faculty at the annual Nume Festival and Academy in Cortona, Italy, has served as visiting assistant professor of violin at Shenandoah Conservatory, and joins the faculty of the Sarasota Music Festival in 2025. Her teaching is guided by a spirit of care, curiosity, and deep respect for each student’s individuality. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Harvard University, where she was the inaugural recipient of the Robert Levin Award, and earned her doctorate from Juilliard. Chen performs on the 1720 "General Kyd" Stradivarius, generously loaned by Dr. Ryuji Ueno and Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.

Hilary Hahn

Hilary Hahn melds expressive musicality and technical expertise with a diverse repertoire guided by artistic curiosity. Her new role with the Juilliard School follows her earlier tenure as visiting artist in the Music Division in the 2023–24 season; she has also recently served as visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music, the 2022 Chubb Fellow at Yale University’s Timothy Dwight College, and artist-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic.

Hahn is known for performing music ranging from solo Bach and the classical repertoire to today’s major composers; she has personally championed works by more than 40 living composers, with recent commissions from Michael Abels, Barbara Assiganaak, Steven Banks, Jennifer Higdon, and Carlos Simon. Her project In 27 Pieces: the Hilary Hahn Encores featured newly commissioned encores from 27 composers, many of whom have continued to write for Hahn in the ensuing years. Among them were Einojuhani Rautavaara and Antón García Abril, whose respective works Deux Sérénades and 6 Partitas have appeared on recordings by Hahn.

Hahn’s wide performance repertoire is reflected in her 23 feature recordings, which have all opened in the top 10 of the Billboard charts. Recent releases include Night After Night, a collection of James Newton Howard’s scores for the films of M. Night Shyamalan, and a Gramophone Award-winning recording of Ysaÿe’s six sonatas for solo violin. Three of Hahn’s albums—her 2003 Brahms and Stravinsky concerto disc, a 2008 pairing of Schoenberg and Sibelius concerti, and her 2013 recording of In 27 Pieces—have earned Grammys.

Beyond the classroom and the concert hall, Hahn’s social media-based initiative #100daysofpractice, launched in 2017, has transformed practice into a community-building celebration of artistic development with nearly one million posts across platforms. A former Suzuki student, she released new recordings of the first three books of the Suzuki Violin School in 2020. In 2019, she released a book of sheet music for In 27 Pieces, which includes her own fingerings and bowings and performance notes for each work.

Hahn studied at the Curtis Institute of Music; she also holds honorary doctorates from Middlebury College and Ball State University. In recent seasons, Hahn has received the Avery Fisher Prize, was named Musical America’s Artist of the Year, and received the Herbert von Karajan and Glasshütte Original Music Festival awards, the latter of which she donated to the Philadelphia music education nonprofit Project 440.

Midori

Midori (Pre-College ’87, violin) is a visionary artist, activist, and educator who explores and builds connections between music and the human experience. In the four decades since her debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 11, she has performed with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras and has collaborated with world-renowned musicians including Leonard Bernstein, Yo-Yo Ma, and many others. 

This season, she performs a recital tour with pianist Özgür Aydin and joins the Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, and other American orchestras. Outside the U.S., she performs with the Vienna Philharmonic under Andris Nelsons in Vienna and in Asia, and with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and German National Youth Orchestra in two appearances at Berlin Philharmonic Hall. Midori began her tenure as artistic director of Ravinia Steans Music Institute’s Piano & Strings in the summer of 2024. 

As someone deeply committed to furthering humanitarian and educational goals, Midori has founded several nonprofit organizations to bring music to children and underserved communities. In recognition of her work as an artist and humanitarian, she serves as a United Nations Messenger of Peace, and in 2021, she was named a Kennedy Center Honoree.  

Born in Osaka in 1971, Midori began her violin studies with her mother, Setsu Goto, at an 

early age. Midori has also served as the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. 

Nina Lee

Through a public-school program, Nina Lee (BM ’97, MM ’99, cello), began learning cello in Chesterfield, Missouri, at age 10. Six years later, she left home to study with David Soyer at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She went on to complete her bachelor’s and master’s at Juilliard with Joel Krosnick, attend the Tanglewood Music Festival, and tour with the Marlboro Music Festival, where she collaborated with Mitsuko Uchida, András Schiff, Felix Galimir, and Samuel Rhodes.

In 1999, Lee joined the Brentano Quartet with which she has performed throughout North America, Europe Australia, New Zealand, China, and Japan. In addition, she has not only recorded the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven but also championed new music represented in her quartet’s commissioned works of Stephen Hartke, Steve Mackey, Vijay Iyer, James MacMillan, Bruce Adolphe, Sofia Gubaidulina, and Shulamit Ran (to name a few). Lee has recorded for the Azica, Naxos, Mode, Cantaloupe, Albany, and Tzadik labels.

Among the projects the Brentano Quartet has undertaken, it recorded the soundtrack to the 2012 film A Late Quartet, which centered around Beethoven’s Op. 131. The film, which starred Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, and Catherine Keener, also featured Lee playing herself in a cameo. 

As important to her life as a musician, Lee has made a commitment to teaching chamber music. She has been on the faculty at Princeton and Columbia Universities and coaches chamber music at the Yale School of Music, where the Brentano Quartet has been in residence since 2014. Regular summer performing and teaching appearances include the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Taos School of Music. Lee has also participated as a guest faculty member at the St. Lawrence String Quartet Chamber Music Seminar, the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music and Kneisel Hall, and the Portland Chamber Music Festival in Portland, Maine. She has also made numerous appearances at the Spoleto Festival USA and La Jolla SummerFest. Lee has also served on the jury of the Salzburg International Quartet Competition in 2023 and the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition jury in 2025. 

Sheryl Staples

Violinist Sheryl Staples, originally from Los Angeles, joined the New York Philharmonic as principal associate concertmaster in 1998. She made her solo debut with the Philharmonic in 1999 performing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, led by Kurt Masur. She has since been featured in numerous concerto performances with conductors including Sir Colin Davis, Lorin Maazel, Jaap van Zweden, Alan Gilbert, Jeffrey Kahane, and Kent Nagano. In addition, she has performed as soloist with more than 45 orchestras nationwide, including The Cleveland Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Prior to joining the New York Philharmonic, Staples served as associate concertmaster of The Cleveland Orchestra from 1996 to 1998. She developed her love for ensemble work at an early age and was leading professional orchestras in Southern California before finishing her studies. She was appointed concertmaster of the Pacific Symphony at age 23 and has enjoyed a varied career consisting of solo and chamber music appearances as well as teaching and recording work.

Staples performs chamber music in the New York area at a variety of venues with Philharmonic colleagues and many of the greatest artists of our time. She has also appeared throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, and Central and South America, and has been a featured artist at La Jolla SummerFest, Strings, Santa Fe, Sarasota, Boston Chamber Music Society, Salt Bay, Mainly Mozart, Seattle, Aspen, and Martha’s Vineyard chamber music festivals.

Staples, originally from Los Angeles, earned an Artist Diploma from the USC Thornton School of Music studying with Robert Lipsett. She began teaching at the age of 17 and has served on the violin faculties of Juilliard Pre-College, Manhattan School of Music, USC, and the Cleveland Institute of Music as well as teaching in orchestral studies at Juilliard. She’s equally committed to working with young violinists as well as those at the conservatory level, and her students have won prizes in international competitions and jobs in major orchestras across the country.

Mark Steinberg

Mark Steinberg (Pre-College ’85; MM ’90, violin) a native New Yorker, has been first violinist of the Brentano Quartet since its inception, in 1992. The quartet, which is ensemble in residence at Yale University, has performed around the world, recorded extensively, and won many awards including the Naumburg Chamber Music Award, the inaugural Cleveland Quartet award, and the Royal Philharmonic Society award for best debut in the U.K. Steinberg has been soloist with the London Philharmonia, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Kansas City Camerata, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia with conductors such as Kurt Sanderling, Esa- Pekka Salonen, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya. Steinberg has appeared often in trio and duo concerts with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, with whom he presented the complete Mozart sonata cycle in London's Wigmore Hall in 2001, with additional recitals in other cities, recording several of the sonatas for Philips. He will revisit the complete Mozart Sonatas starting in 2025 with pianist Jonathan Biss, at Wigmore Hall in London and in Philadelphia, among other cities. He has also toured in Europe and the U.S. as guest concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Steinberg has a bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and a master’s degree from Juilliard; his principal teachers have been Louise Behrend, Josef Gingold, and Robert Mann. Steinberg has been on quartet competition juries at the Banff International Quartet Competition, twice at the Wigmore Quartet Competition, and twice at the Mozart International Quartet Competition in Salzburg as well as the Naumburg Violin Competition and Chamber Music Competition; he will also be on the jury for the 2027 Joseph Joachim Violin Competition. Steinberg has been and will be mentor –in residence for the Banff International Quartet Competition, in 2022 and 2025. Steinberg has been on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music and CUNY Graduate Center. He has taught at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Aspen Festival, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Steans Institute at Ravinia, and Taos School of Music. He has also given master classes at Rice University, the Eastman School of Music, the Cleveland Institute of Music, New England Conservatory, the Glenn Gould School, the Britten- Pears Institute in Aldeburgh, England, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Guildhall School in London, the Amsterdam Conservatory, and numerous other schools.

Photos: Stella Chen (Abigel Kralik); Hilary Hahn and Sheryl Staples (Chris Lee); Midori (Nigel Parry); Nina Lee and Mark Steinberg (Jürgen Frank)