Nicholas DiEugenio

VIOLINIST

Violinist Nicholas DiEugenio has been heralded for his “excellent...evocative” playing (The New York Times), full of “rapturous poetry” (American Record Guide). Nicholas is in-demand as a soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble leader, creating powerful shared experiences in music ranging from early baroque to contemporary commissions. 

A core member of the Sebastians, a period group hailed as “topnotch” by the New Yorker and “sharp-edged and engaging” by the New York Times, Nicholas also performs and records with pianist and wife Mimi Solomon. Their award-winning duo project “Unraveling Beethoven” comprises a full cycle of the Beethoven violin sonatas along with response works from composers Tonia Ko, Robert Honstein, Jesse Jones, Allen Anderson, and D.K. Garner.

His Musica Omnia recording of the complete Schumann violin sonatas with Chi-Chen Wu on fortepiano was named one of the Top 10 albums of 2015 by The Big City. His August 2017 release on the New Focus label with Mimi Solomon, critically lauded as “a touching, committed tribute” (I Care If You Listen), is an homage to the late Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Stucky. The disc features Stucky’s Sonata for violin and piano, two new works by Stucky’s students Jesse Jones and Tonia Ko, and the previously unrecorded Violin Sonata of Robert Palmer.

A two-time prize-winner at the prestigious Fischoff competition, Nicholas is passionately committed to collaboration and has performed chamber music with Laurie Smukler, Joel Krosnick, Joseph Lin, Peter Salaff, and Ani Kavafian, as well as members of the Meta4 Quartet. As a baroque and classical violinist, he has performed with violinists Ingrid Matthews and Aislinn Nosky, as well as members of Tafelmusik, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque, and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He is also an alumnus of the Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, where he was deeply influenced by the musicianship of pianist Seymour Lipkin. At the same time, Nicholas also strives to incorporate musical elements from some of his favorite rock icons such Jimi Hendrix, Anthony Kiedis, and Thom Yorke. 

Rooted in a deeply compassionate approach to teaching, Nicholas is currently Associate Professor of Violin at UNC Chapel Hill and is co-artistic director of MYCO, a non-profit chamber music organization for middle and high school students. Formerly Assistant Professor of Violin at the Ithaca College School of Music, Nicholas continues as a faculty member of the Kinhaven Music School in Vermont during the summers. Nicholas holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music (B.M, M.M) and the Yale School of Music (D.M.A., A.D.). He performs on a baroque violin made by Karl Dennis in 2011, and also on a 1734 violin made by Dom Nicolo Amati.