Gallia Kastner is a twenty-four year old violinist currently studying with Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School of Music in Los Angeles, California. She commenced her private violin study at five and a half with Betty Haag-Kuhnke and at age 9, she studied with Almita and Roland Vamos at the Music Institute of Chicago.
Gallia has been the concertmaster of the American Youth Symphony since 2016 and has won numerous local, national, and international competitions, both as a soloist and chamber musician. She is a winner of the Aspen Conducting Academy’s Violin Competition, performing Sibelius Violin Concerto, the winner of the Dorothy Delay Fellowship for the 2020 Aspen Music Festival, performing with the Aspen Philharmonic on their next season, the Cooper International Violin Competition, the Blount Slawson National Concerto Competition in Montgomery, Alabama, and the Triennial Johansen International Competition in Washington DC. In addition, Gallia was awarded the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Scholarship from NPR’s radio program From The Top and the Jerome and Elaine Nerenberg Foundation Scholarship from The Musicians Club of Women in Chicago.
An avid chamber musician, Gallia was a member of the Lumiére String Quartet that won first place at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and she was also the violinist of Trio Solaris, which collaborated with the Trey McIntyre Project at Jacob’s Pillow. Gallia’s broadcast performances include appearances on WFMT 98.7/Introductions, WTTW Channel 11, WGN Channel 9, and a Today Show appearance with Rachel Barton Pine.
Some of Gallia’s performances with orchestras include The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, The Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra in Pennsylvania, and The Montgomery Symphony. Other stage appearances include concerts in Chicago’s Millenium Park, Ravinia’s Bennett Gordon Hall and outdoor Pavilion, Lincoln Center, Kloster Schontal and Schwabish Hall Kultursiftung in Germany. She has participated in master classes with Rachel Barton Pine, Vadim Gluzman, Arkady Fomin, James Ehnes, Joseph Silverstein, Ida Kavafian, Ani Kavafian, Ben Beilman, Ilya Kaler, Milan Vitek, Ivry Gitlis, the Cavani Quartet, the Pacifica Quartet, the Calder Quartet, the Calidore Quartet, the Dover Quartet, and the Ying Quartet. She has shared the stage with artists such as Lynn Harrell, Gil Shaham, Robert Chen, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Clive Greensmith, Martin Beaver, Scott St. John, and many others.
Gallia Kastner performs on an 1843 Giovanni Francesco Pressenda Violin on generous loan from the Mandell Collection of Southern California.