Critically acclaimed for her “impeccable taste and beautiful singing tone” (Gramophone Magazine), Vesna Stefanovich-Gruppman is equally acclaimed as both a violin and viola soloist, receiving First Prize at the Jaroslav Kocián International Violin Competition and becoming the first artist to win the National Violin Competition in her native Yugoslavia six times in a row. Her solo career began when she was still a teenager. By the age of sixteen, she had performed as a soloist with such ensembles as the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic and the Prague Philharmonic Orchestras. She had regularly appeared on radio and TV programmes throughout Europe. She graduated from the Moscow Central Special School of Music and received her doctorate in performance and pedagogy from the Moscow Conservatoire, where she was privileged to study under the legendary teachers Yuri Yankelevich and Igor Bezrodny. Today, Vesna has a demanding schedule as a soloist and chamber musician. Most recently she has appeared with the Dallas Symphony, the Edmonton Symphony, Concerto Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra, the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine and London’s Beethoven Philharmonic Orchestra, and in recital at London’s Wigmore Hall and St John’s in Smith Square, Amsterdam’s Hermitage Hall, Kiev’s Philharmonic Hall and the Mozart Hall in Prague. Her solo and chamber music recordings have won high praise from such international publications as Gramophone Magazine, American Record Guide and Classical Disc Digest. Her recording of the Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra by Malcolm Arnold (together with her violinist husband Igor Gruppman) for Koch International won a Grammy Award. Classical Disc Digest’s article describes her viola performance and recording of the recreated original version of Brahms’ F Minor Quintet together with lead musicians of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields: “Vesna’s electrifyingly intense, ripe-toned viola playing has infused itself into the hearts and minds of the British contingent, who responded by playing as if their very lives depended on it.”  Her critically acclaimed 2007 performance of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, with the Temple Square Orchestra in partnership with the legendary Ida Haendel, was broadcast numerous times on the US national cable network. The 2009 season marks the release of Video Artists International’s series of recital DVDs featuring Vesna Stefanovich-Gruppman as a soloist and chamber musician. The 2009–2010 season will feature recital and chamber music tours of Asia and the United States. She will also record her next DVD for Video Artists International in Miami in May 2010. Vesna Gruppman also enjoys a successful teaching career. She is head of the Gruppman International Violin Institute and a professor of Violin at the Rotterdam Conservatoire. In 2002, the American String Teachers Association honoured her with the “College Teacher of the Year” award.