BIO

Violist Claudia Lasareff-Mironoff graduated from the University of Denver with a Bachelor of Music degree and earned a Master of Music and a Certificate in Performance from Northwestern University. She then became the principal violist of the Cape Town Symphony in South Africa. Ms. Lasareff-Mironoff has performed chamber music with members of the Chicago Symphony, members of the Lyric Opera, the Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Pacifica String Quartet, Roger Chase, Stephen Burns, Mathias Tacke, Ilya Kaler, Victor Yampolsky, William Wolfram, PINOTAGE, members of Eighth Blackbird, CUBE and the Orion Ensemble.  She has performed with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Grant Park Symphony, Music of the Baroque, The Chicago Philharmonic, Ars Viva and has been the principal violist of the Fulcrum Point New Music Ensemble, Chicago Sinfonietta, the Colorado Music Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, and the Joffrey Ballet. In 2005 she was the violist in Fulcrum Point's debut performance at the Ravinia Festival. During the 2007 season she performed with the Santa Fe Opera.

She has developed, coordinated, coached for and enriched chamber music programs at the university level as the Coordinator of String Chamber Music at Northwestern University (2000-04), the Coordinator of Chamber Music at Wheaton College (2004-10), and as the Director of the Chamber Music at North Park University (2011-16).

In 2016 she was a Guest Lecturer at DePaul University and taught the Viola Orchestra Repertoire Course and led viola sectionals for the DePaul University Chamber and Symphony orchestras. She coached chamber music for the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2004-2006 and 2009-2014.  In the spring of 2016 she performed on the Chicago Symphony’s Music Now Series, Milwaukee’s Present Music and in the Chamber Music Milwaukee series at the UWM. She will join the Peninsula Music Festival for a week of performances in 2016. Currently she is the Adjunct Professor of Viola at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

A champion of new music she has premiered and performed works by many composers including John Adams, Bruce Adolphe,  Lawrence Axelrod, Kathleen Ginther, Osvaldo Golijov, Geoffrey Gordon, Bernard Rands, Paul Moravec, Randy Woolf, Jacob Bancks, Augusta Read Thomas, Clara Iannotta,  and Reinaldo Moya.  Her discography includes chamber works recorded for Albany Records, Jade Records and Innova Records. She was broadcast on the SABC in South Africa in the 1990s and on the ABC in Australia performing contemporary chamber works in 2008.

In 2011 she founded Ensemble Nouvelle Époque a versatile chamber ensemble made up of artists from the Chicago and Milwaukee music scene. They released their first two CDs on Innova Recordings: Six Brandenburg Fantasias and The Heart Revived, both by Lawrence Axelrod.

Her edition of “Five American Duos for Viola and Mezzo-Soprano” was published by Classical Vocal Reprints in 2008. This collection of duos were written for her and singer Julia Bentley by the American composers Robert Lombardo, Kathleen Ginther and Elizabeth Start. In 2016 she arranged the Star Spangled Banner for unaccompanied viola (also available for unaccompanied violin) which was published by Classical Vocal Reprints.

She has performed regularly on WFMT since 1994 including a Dame Myra Hess Recital in 1998. Guest artist recitals and master classes include appearances at Northwestern University, Bowling Green University, Cal State Sacramento, Wheaton College, DePaul University, Roosevelt University, San Francisco State University and the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. She was the guest artist for the viola master class at the 2011 Stulberg International String Competition. 

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