Margaret Batjer

Margaret Batjer has served as concertmaster of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra in 1998. Throughout her successful career as soloist, chamber musician, teacher, and concertmaster, she has established herself as a versatile and respected artist worldwide.

Batjer has appeared as soloist with America’s leading orchestras including the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Batjer has performed with such European ensembles as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra (of Ireland), Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra. She has performed at many of the great halls across the continents such as La Scala, Carnegie Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Suntory Hall.

An esteemed chamber musician, Batjer was a longtime participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, and has often performed on tours with Musicians From Marlboro. Summers have found her performing in the Minnesota Orchestra Summerfest, La Jolla Summerfest, the Sarasota Music Festival, Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and abroad at the Naples, Cremona and the Salzburg Festival.

Ms. Batjer has served as the curator of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra chamber music series since 2007. Among Batjer’s most noteworthy performances have been traversals of the complete Beethoven and Brahms Violin Sonata cycles in partnership with pianist Jeffrey Kahane, at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles. Batjer has collaborated with such notables as Chris Thile, Salvatore Accardo, Maurizio Pollini, Radu Lupu, Peter Serkin, Wu Han, David Finckel. She was recently appointed Director of Chamber Music and Training Programs at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Batjer has had an extensive recording career over the last several decades. She recorded the Bach Concerto for Two Violins with Salvatore Accardo and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for the Philips label, and later a 2003 Deutsche Grammophon recording pairing Batjer and Hilary Hahn as soloists with Jeffrey Kahane conducting the LA Chamber Orchestra. Her most recent recording with the LA Chamber Orchestra includes the live premiere of the Pierre Jalbert Violin Concerto, and works by Bach, Part and Vasks released by BIS. She has also made numerous chamber music recordings on the EMI, Nuova Era and BMG labels.

Batjer is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Ivan Galamian and David Cerone. She joined the faculty of the USC, Thornton School of Music in 2005, and the Colburn Academy in 2014, where she teaches violin and directs the Academy Virtuosi Ensemble.