Svetlana Simannovsky is an internationally active violinist, chamber musician, and pedagogue. She is a faculty member of the String Department at the Buchmann–Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University and a co-founding member of the Israel Haydn Quartet, with which she has performed extensively in Israel and abroad.
An avid chamber musician, Simannovsky has appeared at leading international venues and festivals, including the Ravinia Festival (USA), the West–Eastern Divan, the Berlin Music Festival, the Goppisberger Musik Festival (Switzerland), the Voice of Music Festival in the Upper Galilee, and the Bregenzer Festspiele (Austria). She has performed under the patronage of, and collaborated with, distinguished artists such as Daniel Barenboim, Valery Gergiev, Yo-Yo Ma, Vadim Gluzman, Uwe Kroggel, and Dmitry Tsirin.
Simannovsky is a devoted and highly regarded educator. Her students have continued their professional studies at prestigious institutions including The Juilliard School, the Barenboim–Said School of Music, Kunst Universität Graz, and the Perlman Program for Young Outstanding Musicians.
Her students have performed with and obtained positions in renowned ensembles and orchestras such as the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin.
They are recipients of major scholarships and awards and regularly appear as soloists with orchestras in Israel and internationally.
Simannovsky has given masterclasses at leading institutions including Seoul National University, the Korea National University of Arts, the Accademia Musicale di Brera in Milan, and the Brescia Summer Music Course. She is a regular faculty member at the Goppisberger Musikfestival und Akademie (Switzerland), has taught at the International Music Course in Piandelagotti (Italy), and has served as a chamber music coach at the David Goldman Program for Outstanding Young Musicians at the Jerusalem Music Center. She is also on the faculty of the Keshet Eilon Violin Seminars and a guest professor at the Polyphony Conservatory in Nazareth.
Svetlana Simannovsky holds an Artist Diploma from Roosevelt University in Chicago, where she studied with Vadim Gluzman, and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, both with honors, from the Rubin Academy of Music—now the Buchmann–Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University—where she studied with Irina Svetlova. Her Master’s thesis focused on historical and contemporary approaches to violin pedagogy.
Simannovsky performs on a 1731 Nicolò Gagliano violin, generously loaned from the collection of Mr. Yehuda Zisapel.
Contact: svetlanasim@post.tau.ac.il
