Bella Hristova photo credit: Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

Internationally acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova is known for her passionate and powerful performances, beautiful sound, and compelling command of her instrument. Her numerous prizes include a 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant, First Prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, and First Prize in the Michael Hill International Violin Competition. She has performed extensively as a soloist with orchestras including the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the New York String Orchestra, and the Kansas City and Milwaukee Symphonies. She has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and Boston’s Isabella Gardner Museum, and regularly appears with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In 2017, she and renowned pianist Michael Houstoun toured New Zealand performing and recording the complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin.

“Bella Unaccompanied,” Ms. Hristova’s recording on Tonegold Records, features works by Corigliano, Kevin Puts, Piazzolla, Milstein, and Bach. A committed proponent of new music, she has commissioned composers Joan Tower and Nokuthula Ngwenyama to write unaccompanied violin pieces which she premiered and is performing in recitals throughout the United States and abroad. She further collaborated with her husband David Serkin Ludwig on a violin concerto written for her through a consortium of eight major orchestras across the country.

Hristova began violin studies at the age of six in her native Bulgaria. She studied with Ida Kavafian at the Curtis Institute of Music, and received her Artist Diploma with Jaime Laredo at Indiana University. Ms. Hristova lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their four cats. She performs on a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin.