Middleton Community Orchestra

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courtesy Middleton Community Orchestra

A close-up of Eleanor Bartsch.

Eleanor Bartsch

press release: The Middleton Community Orchestra presents the first of five concerts for the 2022-23 season on Wednesday October 19, at the Middleton Performing Arts Center. 

Kicking off our 13th annual season, we are welcoming back to the stage, violinist Eleanor Bartsch who was one of the first soloists of the MCO in 2011.  Now residing in Chicago with a very busy career as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, we are thrilled to be collaborating with her in a performance of the Scottish Fantasy by Max Bruch.

Tickets are available on venmo, at Willy St Coop West and at the door on the night of the show. Box office opens at 7 pm. Concert is at 7:30. $20 general admission. All students admitted free of charge. 

Hailed for her “clarion tone and technical aplomb” (Chicago Classical Review), Chicago-based violinist Eleanor Bartsch enjoys a diverse and vibrant career as a chamber musician, orchestral musician, concertmaster, soloist, educator, concert curator, and entrepreneur at home in many musical styles. She is currently Concertmaster of the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra, Associate Concertmaster of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, a performing member of the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 2018 became first violinist of the critically acclaimed Kontras Quartet. She has served as Concertmaster of the Chicago Philharmonic, Joffrey Ballet Orchestra, and Chicago Opera Theater Orchestra, and is Co-Founder of Madison, Wisconsin’s Willy Street Chamber Players, an award-winning chamber ensemble with an emphasis on creating community through classical music. Bartsch is a frequent performer at the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Joffrey Ballet, and makes regular summer appearances in Door County at Midsummer’s Music Festival.

As a soloist she has concertized with the Chicago Philharmonic (Bach Concerto for Two Violins with the Miami City Ballet, 2019), the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Sinfonia, the Middleton Community Orchestra (Mozart “Sinfonia Concertante,” 2014 and Beethoven “Triple Concerto,” 2011), and others. Bartsch recently concluded a weeklong residency at the UW-Madison Mead Witter School of Music where she, along with violinist Ariana Kim, gave the world premiere of Laura Schwendinger’s “Nightingales,” for two violins and orchestra with the UW-Madison Symphony.

Along with the rest of the Kontras Quartet, Bartsch recently completed a four-year term as Ensemble in Residence at Art of Elan in San Diego, CA. The Kontras Quartet has also enjoyed an ongoing collaboration with the bluegrass ensemble, the Kruger Brothers, performing a wide array of classical/bluegrass crossover chamber works throughout the United States. In 2023, the Kontras Quartet will release its first full-length album with Bartsch as a member, “Folklore,” including works of Dvorak, Steven Snowden, Rhiannon Giddens and others.

A passionate music educator, Bartsch, along with the rest of the Kontras Quartet, served as an artist in residence and chamber coach at the University of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo from 2018-2020. Bartsch also enjoys coaching a combination of advanced high-school-aged students and adult learners in the intensive week-long summer Kontras Quartet Workshop- a division of the Virginia Suzuki Institute. She is on the faculty of the Barrington, IL Music Academy and has been a guest clinician at institutions throughout the United States.

Bartsch began her violin studies at the age of 4 in her hometown of St. Paul MN. She received her master’s degree in Violin Performance with a certificate in Business Entrepreneurship from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the tutelage of David Perry as a Paul Collins Distinguished Graduate Fellow. Bartsch also received her bachelor’s degree from UW-Madison, during which she was a member of the Perlman Piano Trio, spent her summers at the Aspen Music Festival and School studying with Paul Kantor and was a tenured member of both the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

www.eleanorbartsch.com