Violin I
Gabriel Schaff comes from a strong musical background, beginning his musical studies on the violin at age 6. At the age of 16, he was accepted into Philadelphia’s New School of Music where he coached with the Curtis String Quartet, and later at the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with violin virtuoso, Erick Friedman, later becoming his teaching assistant.
Mr. Schaff is a free-lance violinist in the greater New York area and appears regularly with many of the leading symphony, opera, and ballet ensembles in the region, in addition to frequent chamber and recital collaborations. Mr. Schaff is the founder and Artistic Director of the Englewood Chamber Players, a professional performance and educational organization dedicated to community concerts.
Internationally, he has performed in Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, Finland, Holland, Portugal, Russia, Jordan and Egypt. Many of his performances and collaborations have been aired on National Public Radio and Television, New Jersey Network, the BBC, as well as many commercial radio and network television stations. In addition to teaching privately, he has been on the faculty of the Westminster Choir College, Eastern Music Festival, JCC on the Palisades, Far Hills Country Day School, and at Rutgers University as a frequent guest performer and a lecturer. He is currently an adjunct professor the the Humanities department of Essex College in Newark NJ.
Passionate about the history we both inherit and create, he is involved in historical research and the conservation of bowed stringed instruments, as well as the music written for them. His first full-length book “The Essential Guide to Bows of the Violin Family” was published in 2009 and is available world-wide.
