The charismatic, Spanish-born violinist Francisco Fullana, recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, has been lauded by conductor Gustavo Dudamel as “an amazing talent,” “a rising star” by BBC Music Magazine, and “a paragon of delicacy” by the San Francisco Classical Voice.
He has collaborated with a series of prominent conductors including the late Sir Colin Davis, Hans Graf, Gustavo Dudamel, Joshua Weilerstein, Jeanette Sorrell, José Luis Gómez and Carlos Izcaray, performing with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bayerische Philharmonie, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Tucson Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Buffalo Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Spanish Radio Television Orchestra, in Madrid, and the baroque ensemble Apollo’s Fire, where Fullana was the 2021-22 Artist-in-Residence for the 30th anniversary season of the Grammy-winning ensemble, and with whom he performed 35 concerts as a soloist on tours around the country, including Carnegie Hall and Cleveland’s Severance Hall.
A committed educator, Francisco created the Fortissimo Youth Initiative, a series of music seminars and performances with youth orchestras that aim to explore and deepen young musicians’ understanding of 18th-century music. The seminars are immersive, thrusting students into the sonic world of a single period while inspiring them to channel their energy in the service of vibrant, older styles of musical expression. The results can be galvanic, and Francisco continues to build on, and refine, these educational models.
Born into a family of educators in Mallorca, Francisco is a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Madrid, where he studied with Manuel Guillén. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School following studies with Donald Weilerstein and Masao Kawasaki and holds an Artist Diploma from the USC Thornton School of Music, where he worked with the renowned violinist Midori.
Francisco Fullana performs on the 1735 "Mary Portman" ex-Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù violin, kindly on loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.