Miriam Fried

Miriam Fried was born in Satu Mare, Romania[2] but moved with her family to Israel when she was aged 2.[3]

Her family settled in Herzliya. Her mother was a piano teacher.[2] Miriam first took up piano lessons but when she was eight years old she made a definite choice for the violin. Her studies in Tel Aviv with Alice Fenyves continued under her brother Lorand Fenyves at Geneva,[2] Josef Gingold at Indiana University, and Ivan Galamian at the Juilliard School.[2][3]

In 1968 she won the Paganini Competition in Genoa and in 1971 the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels.[2][3]

Miriam Fried is the dedicatee and first performer of the Violin Concerto by Donald Erb. Other composers who have written works for her include Ned Rorem and Alexander Boskovich.[2]

She has recorded the complete solo sonatas and partitas of Johann Sebastian Bach, and twice recorded the Sibelius Violin Concerto.

She plays a 1718 Stradivarius believed to have been formerly owned by Louis Spohr, and also by Regina Strinasacchi, for whom Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his Sonata in B-flat, K. 454.[3]

She has been Artistic Director and chair of the faculty at the Steans Institute for Young Artists[4] of the Ravinia Festival since 1993. She was a member of the Mendelssohn String Quartet. She is a member of the faculty of the New England Conservatory.[5] She was Professor of Violin at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.[2] Her students include Pekka Kuusisto and Nancy Zhou.

She gives master classes internationally.[5] Her master classes are online available at iClassical Academy,[6] for which she has created as well an in-depth series of Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin.

She is married to the violinist and violist Paul Biss, the son of the Russian-born cellist Raya Garbousova. Their sons are the pianist Jonathan Biss, with whom she often plays,[2] and Illinois State Senator Daniel Biss.