Maria Schleuning

Maria Schleuning, violinist, has been a member of the Voices of Change Modern Music Ensemble since 1996 and Artistic Director of the ensemble since 2009. An advocate of new music, she has worked with many of the leading composers of our day, including the legendary Witold Lutoslawski, George Crumb, Aaron Kernis, John Corigliano, Augusta Read Thomas, Sebastian Currier, Bright Sheng, Samuel Adler, Donald Erb, David Dzubay, and Pierre Jalbert. She has premiered many new works, including Dream Catcher, a solo violin work written especially for her as a gift by Augusta Read Thomas which Schleuning first performed on May 3, 2009 in Dallas, TX.

An active chamber musician, Schleuning has performed in venues such as New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Weill Hall, Merkin Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as at numerous festivals throughout the United States and Europe. From 1993 to 2012 she was a faculty member and performer at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine. She served in the same capacity at Idyllwild Arts in California from 2007 to 2010 at the Bennington Music Festival, Vermont in 2012. She has recorded with the modern music ensemble Continuum in New York City, with the Grammy-nominated Voices of Change in Dallas, and with the Walden Piano Quartet. In addition, she serves as principal second violin of the New York Women’s Ensemble and Principal Second Violin of the Classical Tahoe Orchestra, for which she was a guest concertmaster in 2014.

A member of the Dallas Symphony since 1994, Schleuning has been featured as soloist with the orchestra on many occasions. Other solo highlights include appearances with the Oregon Symphony, Seattle Symphony, West Virginia Symphony, Abilene Symphony, Laredo Symphony, Bozeman Symphony, and the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra on tours of Chine and Eastern Europe, the latter of which included concerts at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and the Rudolfinuum in Prague. Schleuning studied with Josef Gingold at Indiana University, where she was awarded a Performer’s Certificate; with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School in London, through a grant from the Myra Hess Foundation; and with Joel Smirnoff at the Juilliard School, where she received her master’s degree.