Member
Contact Information
vijaychalasaniviola@gmail.comLocation
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Early Music Skills & Interests
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Biography
South Asian-American violist and arts administrator Vijay Chalasani is a performer, scholar, teaching-artist, and advocate for diversity and equity, whose work focuses on the performance practice of music of the last five centuries. Equally at home on both modern and historical violas, Chalasani has been featured as a soloist in repertoire ranging from Telemann and Graun to Walton and Feldman. An avid advocate for contemporary music, Chalasani was the soloist in the US premiere of Vinko Globokar’s chamber-theater piece Blinde Zeit with members of the Callithumpian Consort, supervised by the composer. He has also performed with violist-composer Garth Knox, pianist-conductor Stephen Drury, and the Inverted Space Ensemble; coached with composers Vijay Iyer, Kamala Sankaram, Brian Ferneyhough, Scott Wollschleger, and Nicole Mitchell; and has commissioned new works for viola in collaboration with the Guerrilla Composers Guild and others.
Chalasani performs frequently on period instruments with ensembles such as American Bach Soloists, Boulder Bach Festival, Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado, Pacific MusicWorks, Sinfonia Spirituosa, and Early Music Vancouver, as well as in chamber music performances of works from the classical and romantic eras on historical instruments. His research on original viola pedagogy and performance practices of the long 19th century has led to performance collaborations and conference presentations at the Universities of Oxford and Huddersfield (UK), as well as a recording of works by Tchaikovsky and Fuchs made by the Accordes! International Chamber Orchestra released in 2020. Chalasani was appointed a member of Early Music America’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) Task Force in August 2021, and currently serves as a member of the EMA Board of Directors.
Since becoming a permanent resident of Canada in 2023, Chalasani has performed with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, and as a volunteer chorister with the Joie de Vivre and Westworth United Church choirs. He is thrilled to be joining both the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir as its manager and the teaching faculty at the Manitoba Conservatory of Music & Arts. Born in Northern California, he is grateful to now reside on Treaty One territory in Winnipeg with his wife Ruth Denton.
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