Stephanie
Sant'Ambrogio

CMR Founder & Artistic Director
 
Described by Gramophone Magazine as a “violinist who most often takes your breath away” and praised as an “expressive and passionate chamber musician” by the San Antonio Express-News, Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio enjoys a varied performing and recording career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. Professor of Violin and Viola at the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) and member of the Argenta Trio, she is also Founder and Artistic Director Emerita of Cactus Pear Music Festival, which she created in 1997 while serving as Concertmaster of the San Antonio Symphony. Previously First Assistant Principal Second Violin of The Cleveland Orchestra, under Christoph von Dohnányi, she toured and recorded internationally with this ensemble for eight seasons. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S. as well as in Mexico, Canada, Estonia, Sweden, Ghana, Italy, Peru and Chile. In 2009, she was appointed Concertmaster of the Lancaster Festival Orchestra and the following year was appointed Concertmaster of the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra. That same year she was awarded UNR’s prestigious Alan Bible Teaching Excellence Award. In addition to her active performing career, Stephanie is devoted to teaching serious young violinists, many who have won positions in America’s symphonies and universities.

Ms. Sant’Ambrogio has a discography of over seventy-five orchestral and chamber music CDs. Audiophile Review described her Johannes Brahms: The Violin Sonatas CD as “Fine readings of great finesse, rich coloring and complete understanding.” Her other releases include Late Dates with Mozart; and Going Solo: Unaccompanied Works for Violin & Viola on the MSR Classics label, and Argenta Trio: The Piano Trios of Felix Mendelssohn on Bridge Records. Her Soaring Solo: Unaccompanied Works for Violin & Viola CD was released in the spring of 2016. Stephanie appears on Albany Records CD Love Comes in at the Eye Songs & Instrumental Works on Albany. In addition to her performances as violinist, violist and former Artistic Director of Cactus Pear Music Festival, Ms. Sant’Ambrogio frequently performs and teaches at various festivals including: Bach, Dancing & Dynamite Society (WI); Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival (WA); Nevada Chamber Music Festival (NV); Music in the Vineyards (CA); Round Top Festival Institute (TX); and, Tuckamore Festival (Newfoundland, Canada). 

Her chamber music activities have included performances and recordings with such noted artists as, Ida Kavafian, Richard Stoltzman, Joyce Yang, David Shifrin, Jon Nakamatsu, Richard Goode, Jon Kimura Parker and Gunther Schuller. She is featured in chamber music recordings under the Arabesque, Albany, Bridge and MSR Classics labels, and her live concert performances were heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio has performed as first violinist with the Miami String Quartet and has been a guest artist with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, performing at both the Lincoln and Kennedy Centers. She toured Italy with Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, toured extensively throughout Ohio with Cleveland’s Myriad, and for ten years performed with the Amici String Quartet, of which she was a founding member. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio studied with and was the graduate assistant to Donald Weilerstein at The Eastman School of Music, where she received her Master of Music degree. Previously she received her Bachelor of Music degree with distinction from Indiana University as a scholarship student of Laurence Shapiro and James Buswell.

The name Sant’Ambrogio is frequently found in concert programs throughout America. John Sant’Ambrogio, former Principal Cellist of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, gave his daughter Stephanie her first violin lessons at the age of five. Her sister Sara is a cellist with the Naumberg Award-winning Eroica Trio. For thirty years the Sant’Ambrogio family directed Red Fox Music Camp, which was founded by grandmother Isabelle Schiebler Sant’Ambrogio, a celebrated concert pianist. The legacy of teaching music has been passed down in the Sant’Ambrogio family for four generations. Ms. Sant’Ambrogio plays a violin crafted in 1757 by J.B. Guadagnini of Milan, Italy, the city from which the family name Sant’Ambrogio originates and her contemporary viola was made by Jacek Zadlo in Chicago in 2008. She and her graphic designer husband Gary Albright, enjoy exploring Lake Tahoe with their daughters, twenty-four year-old Isabel and twenty-two year-old Gabrielle.