California Music Violinist and Violist


Biography

"Gregory has a quite gorgeous tone, is absolutely secure technically and plays with power, richness and assurance."
 - Terry Robbins, The WholeNote, Canada

American violinist and violist Annelle Kazumi Gregory is a laureate of international competitions, concert soloist, and recording artist.  She is 1st Prize & Audience Choice Award winner of the 2017 National Sphinx Competition and a Laureate of the 2013 Stradivarius International Violin Competition.

Annelle’s love of Russian music has led her to discover and revive forgotten works of great Russian composers, presenting these works in concert and in recordings.  In 2017 she released the first-ever CD of Rachmaninoff's complete violin/piano works, recorded with pianist Alexander Sinchuk (Bridge Records).  The CD received international acclaim and aired on radio stations across the U.S. and Europe.  Her most recent CD, "Russian Music for Solo Violin and Orchestra" with conductor Dmitry Yablonsky and the Kiev Virtuosi Symphony Orchestra was released by Naxos in 2019.

As a soloist, Annelle has performed with the symphonies of Houston, Detroit, Chicago Sinfonietta, Kiev Virtuosi, San Diego, New Jersey, Nashville, and Philadelphia, working alongside such conductors as Mei-Ann Chen, Andrew Grams, Lawrence Loh, Ken-David Masur, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, John Morris Russell, Thomas Wilkins, Dmitry Yablonsky, and Xian Zhang.  She has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Hall, as well as abroad in Azerbaijan, England, Germany, Portugal, Russia, Spain, and Ukraine.  She has been featured on BBC, NPR, KUSC, and WQXR radios as well as on German television and PBS.

After graduating from high school at age 16 with honors, Annelle graduated first in her class, summa cum laude, from USC’s Thornton School of Music with departmental honors and became the first music performance major to win the Discovery Scholar Prize. She then studied at the Moscow Conservatory International School for two summers.  Her teachers have included Michael & Irina Tseitlin and Glenn Dicterow.  She was awarded the 2017 Isaac Stern Award and the 2014 Glenn Dicterow Music Scholarship, and has received scholarships from the Musical Merit Foundation and the League of Allied Arts.  Other awards include 1st Prizes in the 2017 “Grand Prize Virtuoso” International Competition, the 2017 NANM National Strings Competition, the 2017 Beverly Hills National Auditions, the 2016 American Protégé International Concerto Competition, and the 2012 NAACP ACT-SO National Strings Competition.  She was a featured soloist for the 2018 Kiev Conservatory International Easter Festival, the 2017-18 Sphinx Virtuosi national tours, the 2016 iPalpiti Festival of International Laureates, and in 2013 opened for the Moscow Ballet, performing a solo with the principal ballerina.  She is also faculty at the annual Burgos International Music Festival in Spain.

A multi-instrumentalist from a young age, Annelle also plays piano, drumset, guitar, and bass guitar in addition to violin and viola. She has performed tap, jazz, flamenco, and Japanese classical dance.  In her spare time, Annelle does modeling for clothing brand MyKnitEver and enjoys producing music videos, cooking, and writing songs for her one-man rock band Starrider.

Downloadable Bio
Short bio available upon request

Repertoire List

Photograph by Michael Oletta