Biography

Ann was identified as having perfect natural pitch and began playing the violin at the age of five. She was taught by Philadelphia Orchestra violinist Robert DePasquale and shortly after her 10th birthday debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of David Zinman.  

Ann's primary instructors were Sherry Kloss, the teaching assistant of Jascha Heifetz, and Erick Friedman, Heifetz's protégé. These two instructors used techniques passed down from Heifetz's own teacher, Leopold Auer. Auer was perhaps the greatest violin instructor of all time and helped make the St. Petersburg Conservatory such a successful incubator of musical talent prior to the Russian Revolution. Many secrets of the "Old Russian School" violinists have been forever lost to time, so Ann constantly experiments to recreate the sounds of Heifetz, Milstein and Auer.

At the age of 14, Ann was one of the youngest artists ever accepted to Yale University School of Music. In 2003, Ann appeared on NPR's From the Top and played Vieuxtemps to stunning effect. Ann released her debut album "Bach, Schubert & Bruch" in 2005.

Ann's London debut concert at Wigmore Hall in December 2005 was acclaimed as one of the "top five concerts" of the season by the London Independent and their writer Dr. John Birchell hailed Ann as "the only working artist today who might be mistaken for Heifetz". Erick Friedman, who spent years working with both Ann and Heifetz, believed that because Ann has perfect musical pitch, hyper-flexive hands and is ambidextrous, just like Heifetz, she can replicate the precision of the 20th-century's great virtuoso.

In addition to being a violinist, Ann is also a commissioned composer. In 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2005 she was an award recipient in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composers Competition. Ann was also featured in a Symphony Magazine article about young composers ("Born to Compose", May/June 2003).

Currently, 20-year-old Ann is mentored by Dan Meyer, Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony and continues to study musicology at the University of Pennsylvania. Ann is supported by Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour (PennPAT), which has covered 40% of Ann's fees for recent bookings.

Ann is represented by DeeAnne Hunstein of Hunstein Artists Services. She plays on a 320-year-old Grancino violin.