ABOUT
French-American violinist Lydia Becker unites historical performance practices with creativity and curiosity, engaging diverse audiences through explorative music-making.
Lydia currently serves as concertmaster for La Forza delle Stelle, and has held concertmaster positions for Juilliard415, the Boston Early Music Festival Young Artists program, and the Eastman Collegium Musicum. As a core member of Juilliard415, Lydia toured the Netherlands and Germany, and has performed with Rachel Podger, Reggie Mobley, William Christie, and Lionel Meunier, among others. She has appeared as a soloist with Juilliard415 (under the direction of Masaaki Suzuki), Publick Musick, and the Eastman Collegium Musicum (with Christel Thielmann and Paul O’Dette). She is a founding member of the Berwick Fiddle Consort, an ensemble that explores historical fiddling traditions of the British Isles.
Equally at home on modern violin, Lydia regularly teaches and performs at Rencontres Musicales Internationales des Graves (France), where she has premiered new works by composers such as François Rossé and collaborated with Maxim Vengerov. She also co-founded the Kenaniah Project, an eclectic jazz-classical-folk chamber ensemble that presents sacred Christian music from a fresh perspective.
Lydia is a Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant recipient, a Mercury-Juilliard Fellow, and was recently named an English Concert in America Fellow. She is also a former Presser Scholar, Morse Teaching Artist fellow, and a member of Pi Kappa Lambda. Lydia holds degrees from the Juilliard School, the Eastman School of Music, and the Conservatoire de Bordeaux. She is a private violin instructor at the Geneva Conservatory in Manhattan.