Sandra Goldberg, Composer
Although she composed a bit as a child, Sandra Goldberg’s life as a composer really started in the late 1990’s. She has been developing and expanding her talents as a composer since then in various genres including music for children, chamber music, songs, and orchestral works.
In 2009 her musical drama “Judah-Judah” was performed at St. Peter’s Church in Zürich, several of the songs having been premiered in a concert version in the USA in 2004 at Temple Adath Emanu-El in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey.
She has received prizes and recognition for several of her compositions, including the American String Teacher Fiddle Competition in Nebraska, USA and the Boathouse Cello Choir competition in Florida. Her compositions have been heard on the Arte Concerts “Hope at Home” series and on Swiss and German television. Her music has been performed by such artists as Daniel Hope and Giora Feidmann, by the Leonia Chamber Players in New Jersey and by members of the Zürich Chamber Orchestra and other colleagues in Switzerland. Her “Clarinet Rider” for clarinet ensemble was performed for the Opening Season Festival 2017 at the Zürich Opera House.
As a violinist and composer, she has been featured in musical collaborations with writers Marta Rubinstein and Dorrie Iten-Gilden, actors Helmut Vogel and Graziella Rossi, and visual artists Ruth Handschin, Libby Raynam and Dan Rubinstein.
Most recently she has been invited to participate in the Swiss Female Composers Festival 2020-21.
“Now you have to do one thing for me, Sandra Goldberg:
Write MORE music! The world needs it.”
— Randal Turner, bass-baritone —
Sandra Goldberg, Violinist
Sandra Goldberg grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. Beginning the violin with her father Milton Goldberg, she pursued her musical studies at the Peabody Conservatory, Eastman School of Music and Yale School of Music, as well as at the Banff Centre. She has had a successful career as a soloist, chamber music player, orchestral player and teacher. She has performed chamber music with such fine artists as Zara Nelsova, Aaron Rosand, Nobuko Imai, David Schifrin, Carter Brey, Joseph Robinson, Steven De Groote, Olli Mustonen and Hidetaro and Zeyda Suzuki.
As a winner of New York Artists International she made her debut with the Orion String Quartet at Carnegie Recital Hall. Memorable solo performances have been of the Bartók Concerto no. 2 at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Takemitsu’s “Nostalghia” in the Zürich Tonhalle, the Mendelssohn Concerto with the National Russian Philharmonic Orchestra of Tomsk (in Baden and Montreux, Switzerland) and performances of Schnittke’s “Moz-Art à la Haydn” on tour as a member of the Zürich Chamber Orchestra (ZKO) in Switzerland, Turkey, China, Singapore, and at the Carinthian Summer Festival in Villach, Austria. Appointed to the post of Third Solo Violin of the ZKO in 1985, she was also assistant concertmaster there for several years. She retired from the orchestra in 2017.
Her prinicpal teachers have included Berl Senofsky, Donald Weilerstein and the Cleveland Quartet, Syoko Aki Erle and Karen Tuttle. She has also worked with Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Aaron Rosand and Zoltan Szekely among others, and has performed in master classes of Szymon Goldberg, Raphael Bronstein and Nathan Milstein.
“The plum of Friday night’s performance was, of course,
violinist Sandra Goldberg’s performance …
the three ovations she received could
have justly been doubled.”
— Chicago Sun Times —