First Prize winner of the Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition, violinist Michelle Makarski has been featured in broadcasts, television and the European documentary film, Music Hotel. Her association with ECM Records has resulted in a number of highly praised award-winning CDs including recitals, jazz and chamber music. Her recent solo album, To be sung on the water, is heralded as “A conceptual and artistic triumph” (The Strad SELECTION, July 2006 ).

Makarski’s association with composers has resulted in numerous works dedicated to her, including those by Donald Crockett and Stephen Hartke featured on her cds for ECM and New World Records. She has played in Carnegie Hall and at the Barbican as recitalist and as soloist with ensembles including the American Symphony and the American Composers Orchestras, the Atlanta Symphony, the Istanbul State Symphony, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic, and at festivals including Klangspuren (Austria), Aterforum (Italy), Jazz Baltica (Germany), Huddersfield (UK), Marlboro and Tanglewood (USA).

As an improvisor she has performed in duo with pianist Marilyn Crispell and toured with jazz trumpeter Thomasz Stanko’s 2000 Deutsche Schallplatten Kritik - winning project on ECM Records, From the Green Hill.

Reviewing her Carnegie Hall recital debut, Andrew Porter in The New Yorker said “Miss Makarski seemed herself to become the singer, uttering the lines almost as if she were composing them...” and Leighton Kerner of the Village Voice: “ Makarski spat, frolicked and wailed to a fare-thee-well.”

BBC Music Magazine’s “Who’s Who in Music” lists her amongst the most important contemporary violinists.

Michelle is a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and brings those skills to her teaching and to masterclasses and residencies she offers in the US and abroad.