Joseph Lin

Sought after as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher, Joseph Lin has performed at such venues as Symphony Hall in Boston, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the National Concert Hall in Taipei, the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and Town Hall in Auckland. He has appeared as soloist with the Boston Symphony, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Taiwan National Symphony, the Auckland Philharmonia, and the Ukraine National Philharmonic. His regular festival appearances include Marlboro, the Seattle Chamber Music Festival, and the Tucson Winter Festival.

Joseph Lin was first violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet from 2011 to 2018 before stepping down to devote more time to his four young children. Mr. Lin continues on the faculty of the Juilliard School, where he teaches violin and chamber music.  He has led several initiatives in chamber music, and enjoys collaborations with both students and colleagues at Juilliard. Mr Lin's 2019 projects included a collaboration with Robert Levin presenting Beethoven and Schubert on period instruments; a Musicians from Marlboro tour on violin and viola, collaborations with Juilliard students during Chamberfest, and performances of Bartok's 2nd Violin Concerto. 

From 2007 to 2011, Mr. Lin was an assistant professor at Cornell University. There, he organized the inaugural Chinese Musicians Residency in 2009. The following year, Mr. Lin led a project with Cornell composers to study the violin Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, and to create new music inspired by Bach. This culminated in a series of concerts premiering the new works alongside Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas.  In 2018 Joseph returned to Bach with a performance of the complete Sonatas and Partitas at Sumida Triphony Hall in Tokyo.

Mr. Lin was a founding member of the Formosa Quartet, winner of the 2006 London International String Quartet Competition. In 1996, Mr. Lin was awarded First Prize at the Concert Artists Guild International Competition, and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts the same year. In 1999, he was selected for the Pro Musicis International Award, and in 2001, he won First Prize at the inaugural Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand. Mr. Lin’s recordings include the music of Korngold and Busoni with pianist Benjamin Loeb (Naxos), the complete unaccompanied works of Bach and Ysaÿe (N&F), an album of Debussy, Franck, and Milhaud with pianist Orion Weiss (N&F), and the Formosa Quartet’s debut CD (EMI).  In 2013, he was part of the JSQ’s recording of Elliot Carter’s Quartet No. 5 (Sony Classical), and in 2015, the JSQ's interactive app on Schubert's "Death and the Maiden" Quartet was produced by Touchpress and the Juilliard School.   Mr. Lin can also be heard on the JSQ's most recent recording of Beethoven, Davidovksy, and Bartók, and his latest recording project, the Mozart A major Violin Concerto with original cadenzas, was released in 2017 on the N&F label.

Joseph Lin’s violin teachers have included Mary Canberg, Shirley Givens and Lynn Chang. Mr. Lin graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 2000. In 2002, he began an extended exploration of China, spending 2004 studying Chinese music in Beijing as a Fulbright Scholar.