A native of Colleyville, Texas, violinist Stirling Trent has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. While a resident of Southern California, he performed in many of the region’s top ensembles, such as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Pasadena Master Chorale. He also served as Concertmaster for a number of exciting new ensembles, such as the Symbiosis Ensemble, based out of Los Angeles, and the Arizona Chamber Orchestra, out of Phoenix. Previously a member of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Stirling now sits as the Associate Principal Second Violin of the Kansas City Symphony.
Notable concert appearances by Mr. Trent include Live from Lincoln Center with Itzhak Perlman, as well as a series at Carnegie Hall in 2003 in which he was concertmaster for the New York String Orchestra under Jaime Laredo. In 2007, Stirling sat as concertmaster for the Moritzburg Festival Academy Orchestra under Hermann Bäumer, in Dresden, Germany. Mr. Trent has won numerous awards, including Grand Prizes from the Texas Association of Symphony Orchestras’ Juanita Miller Competition, the Dallas Symphonic Festival, and the Hubbard Chamber Music Festival. In 1999, he received the inaugural Bayard Friedman Award for an Outstanding Student in the Performing Arts. His international competition experience includes the Sixth Quadrennial International Violin Competition in Indianapolis, the Geneva International Music Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition for violinists in Brussels, Belgium, the 5th Seoul International Music Competition, in Seoul, South Korea, and the 4th Sendai International Music Competition, in Sendai, Japan.
A respected young musician, he has had lessons and master classes from Charles Avsharian, David Cerone, Pamela Frank, Ida Kavafian, Jaime Laredo, Cho-Liang Lin, Elmar Oliveira, Itzhak Perlman, Arnold Steinhardt, Sally Thomas, and Pinchas Zukerman; he has also worked with members of such renowned chamber groups as the Emerson, St. Lawrence, Schoenberg, Brentano, Orford, Fine Arts, Guarneri and Tokyo string quartets.
Mr. Trent is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he was a student of Itzhak Perlman. In addition to his Bachelor’s degree from Juilliard, he studied for many years with Jan Mark Sloman, the Associate Principal Concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony, and earned an Artist Certificate from Southern Methodist University. Having been inspired by great teachers himself, Stirling enjoys working with a small private studio of his own students. Recently, he was invited to join the violin faculty of the Idyllwild Summer Arts Academy. Stirling holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Southern California, where his principal teacher was Midori Goto.