A wide variety of performance opportunities await our students each year, with orchestras, bands, choirs and opera, jazz nonets and combos, small ensembles, and more.
A variety of programs and initiatives operate continuously or annually to enhance learning experiences and help students prepare for their future in music.
The MSU College of Music supports and challenges students, values innovation and creativity, and helps every community member achieve professional excellence.
Dmitri Berlinsky, professor of violin and artist teacher at the Michigan State University College of Music, arrived on the international scene as the youngest winner in the history of the Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, Italy. This victory led to his performance on Nicolo Paganini’s own Guarneri del Gesú instrument, a privilege shared by only a handful of artists in history. Subsequent triumphs at the Montreal International Violin Competition (grand prize), the International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, led to appearances with major orchestras in Europe, Russia, the Far East, North and South America.
Berlinsky has performed in such major venues as Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls in New York, Kennedy Center in Washington DC, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Mariinsky Concert Hall, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Munich Herkulessaal, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Bonn Beethoven Hall, Le Place des Arts in Montreal and Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, among others.
His extensive performance schedule has taken him to the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Prague Spring Festival, the Aspen Music Festival, the Newport Music Festival, the Settimane Musicale in Stresa, Italy, Bratislava Festival, as well as appearances at the Ambassador Foundation in Pasadena, the Fiddle Fest at Alice Tully Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York City.
Recently he performed with Lorin Maazel at the Castleton Festival, Russian National Orchestra at the Arts Square Festival in St. Petersburg, Prague Radio Symphony at the Budapest Spring Festival, Orchestra de Chambre Français in New York, Russian Chamber Philharmonic on European Tour. He directed and performed with “International Chambers Soloists” at the Fontana Arts Festival, San Francisco Conservatory, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto. He gave recitals in the US, Taiwan, Korea, England, Italy, Mexico and Brazil.
Recent highlights include performances with the London Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Sinfonia Toronto, Montreal Symphony, New York Chamber Symphony, Leipzig Radio Orchestra, Belgian National Orchestra, Quebec, Utah, Virginia, Kalamazoo, Miami, San Antonio, and West Virginia Symphonies, Seoul Philharmonic, New Jersey Philharmonic, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Weimar Staatskapelle, Berlin Staatskapelle, Gent Opera Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonia Siciliana, UNAM Symphony in Mexico City, I Musici de Montreal in Canada and the United States, South American tour with the Prague Chamber Orchestra, as well as appearances at the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico and festivals in Italy, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia, Taiwan and Costa Rica.
His playing was featured in the Emmy-Award documentary “Life on Jupiter” and “New York Canvas.”
Berlinsky’s students at MSU have won important international competitions such as the Tchaikovsky, Menuhin, Tibor Varga, William Byrd and have assumed positions in orchestras including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and concertmaster of the Seattle Symphony.