Daniela Shtéreva, Associate Concertmaster
Dennis Ling and Janice Teal Chair
The Washington Post described Daniela Shtéreva’s Kennedy Center debut as “shot through with fantasy and fire.” The Strad magazine commended her New Zealand performance as “absolutely spine-tingling” (Rod Biss). And Joseph Silverstein, the venerated concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, shared with The Strad that “she won us over completely with her sensitive artistry.”
Daniela was born in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, into a family with a musical tradition spanning five generations. She made her solo violin debut with an orchestra at age 6 and became a national competition prizewinner at age 7. Her early training began at the School of Music in Plovdiv in the studios of Elena Doykova and then Elena Koynova, followed by a bachelor’s degree from the National Conservatory of Music in Sofia in the studios of Evgenya-Maria Popova and Yosif Radionov. She was then invited by violinist Kevork Mardirossian to further her skills in the U.S. with a master’s degree from Louisiana State University, and she concluded her training with an Artist Diploma at Carnegie Mellon University with violinist Cyrus Forough. Throughout her education, Daniela felt fortunate to work with virtuoso violinists, themselves pupils of legendary masters like Leonid Kogan, Yfrah Neaman, David Oistrakh and Joseph Gingold.
Daniela became a winner of the Washington International String Competition and the National Society of Arts and Letters violin competition, as well as a prizewinner of the Szeryng, Postacchini and Vladigerov international violin competitions. She was also a semifinalist of the Sibelius, Indianapolis, Michael Hill and Sarasate international violin competitions. Her solo appearances include the Redlands Symphony Orchestra, Plovdiv Symphony and Varna International Summer Festival, among others. In 2020, Daniela was selected to perform at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall for the annual Bulgarian Treasures gala concert. She has recordings archived with Bulgarian National Television and Bulgarian National Radio. Her discography features five solo albums for Music Minus One, as well as The Beauty of a Violin & Piano, Angel’s Dreams and Parallax for Luna Records, which won the 2020 Global Music Awards Silver Medal and was praised as “superb” by Elmar Oliveira, the first American winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition.
As an orchestral musician, Daniela toured throughout Europe starting at age 14. In the U.S., she trained at the Tanglewood Festival, where she was selected to join the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Andrey Boreyko and also worked with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra during her CMU years. As a concertmaster, she served with the Omaha Symphony and Tulsa Opera, and she served as assistant concertmaster with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra and Erie Philharmonic. She was awarded the Starling String Quartet scholarship at Carnegie Mellon University and was invited to perform at the Seattle Chamber Music Society summer festival.
A member of the Naples Philharmonic since 2008, Daniela is also very passionate about teaching. She served as the Upper Strings teacher at the Community School of Naples and has coached the Naples Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, in addition to her private studio teaching. In 2019, she also founded the nonprofit organization Arts Planet to bring boutique-style, innovative, informative performances to the community. Daniela performs on an 1850 Charles Nicolas Maucotel violin and uses a Dominique Peccatte bow.
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The facts:
I knew absolutely nothing about Naples before I first auditioned here in 2008. But I had to take a shot at going somewhere warm after I had been freezing for five years in Pittsburgh. I was given a one-year position at the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra, and to this day, I am still here! For the record, though, going to the beach really turned out not to be part of the contract.
What has been your most memorable moment with the orchestra?
Each year brings more memorable moments. Recently, after a last-minute cancellation, we achieved something unprecedented. The soloist for a Broadway program had a medical emergency 90 minutes before the concert and could not perform. In just 60 minutes, the conductor and librarian assembled an entirely new program and placed all the sheet music on our stands for us to sight-read during the concert. Their quick work kept us from canceling and disappointing 1,400 patrons. It worked like magic, and I was incredibly proud of my colleagues. I have never seen another organization handle an emergency so flawlessly. Go team!
What inspired you to become a musician?
My family and the professional symphony concerts I used to watch as a child. Music has been a tradition for five generations in my family on my father’s side and for as long as I can remember, I always felt like I was born to play the violin. But watching world-class professionals as a child was crucial, too!
What is the most enjoyable part of your job?
Meeting new guest artists almost every week and playing not only orchestral literature but also chamber music. Collaborating with guest soloists at the chamber series is enriching and exciting!
What’s challenging about playing your instrument?
The violin? My goodness! Is there at least one thing that is not challenging? The violin is the smallest of the string family, which narrows the room for precision by comparison to the rest of the string instruments. Much like the human body, it is sensitive and complex, and it reacts to weather conditions like temperature, humidity and elevation. The violin is asymmetrical in structure on the inside and demands asymmetrical skills to play it, too. Each hand has an independent task with this unique instrument, but you cannot rush to master their interaction, because the bow alone offers between 25 and 102 techniques to learn. Then, for some genius reason, we are left to find the notes in the left hand on our own (no frets like on a guitar), and there is more than one location that offers the same pitch, which is mind-boggling to non-string players. Since there is no indication of where the ultimate tuning point is, you have to train your ear to guide your muscles to find each note you create, and the precise intonation spot often feels like the size of a needle point. And because all that skill only takes about 15-20 years to master, if you win a position in an orchestra, you have to blend and sound as one with 20 or more violinists while sometimes seated up to 50 feet apart. Additionally, the instrument has been around for more than 400 years, offering such a wide range of expression and inspiring so many composers to write for it that I wonder if one lifetime is enough to cover all the literature written for the violin. It is certainly never boring, and it is truly a full-time job to master the violin at a professional level and then sustain that skill for life.
What are your favorite compositions?
Many... My favorite is the fact that there is such a variety of periods and styles in the centuries of classical music. The sensitivity, complexity and contrast are endless, and enjoying the magical journey of travel through sound and different moods for different eras is my favorite.
What have you been listening to recently?
Jazz or silence. When you spend so many hours in a day working with sound and then stop, sometimes the contrast of silence, or jazz, feels best.
Are there other musicians in your immediate family?
Yes. Yes. My brother is a concertmaster in Bulgaria. And my father retired from his orchestral career after 52 seasons of service!
What do you like to do outside of work?
Swimming, hiking (outside Florida, obviously), learning about nutritional and physical health, reading biographies, watching documentaries — basically learning new and informative things whenever possible. I also love serving the arts and humanity through my other passions of teaching and my nonprofit artistic organization. I love to socialize when possible and visit new places, but I can’t live without playing the violin even if I had no concerts. I just love practicing and the mind-body-soul connection behind it. Life is meaningful when it’s eventful, creative, explorational and enriched by the violin!