Nina Stern is one of North America’s leading performers of the recorder and classical clarinet. In recent years she is also hailed as an innovator in teaching school-age children to be fine young musicians. A native New Yorker, Ms. Stern studied with Jeanette van Wingerden and Hans-Rudolf Stalder at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Switzerland, where she received a Soloist’s Degree. From Basel, she moved to Milan, Italy where she was offered a teaching position at the Civica Scuola di Musica. Ms. Stern performs regularly as soloist or principal player with prestigious ensembles such as The New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, The New York Collegium, Concert Royal, Philharmonia Baroque, Sinfonia NY, American Classical Orchestra and Boston Baroque, She has also appeared as principal player with Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, L’Orchestra della Scala (Milan), I Solisti Veneti, Hesperion XX and Tafelmusik. Her numerous festival and concert series appearances have included performances under leading conductors such as Loren Maazel, Kurt Masur, Christopher Hogwood, Trevor Pinnock, Claudio Scimone, Jane Glover, Bruno Weil, Ton Koopman, Andrew Parrot and Jordi Savall. She has recorded for Erato, Harmonia Mundi, Sony Classics, Newport Classics, Wildboar, Telarc and Smithsonian labels. Nina Stern’s latest projects include performances of traditional music of Eastern Europe and The Middle East. She recently released an album of world music entitled “East of the River”.

Ms. Stern is currently on the faculty of the Mannes College of Music where she directed the Historical Performance Program from 1989 to 1996. She has taught at the Five Colleges in Western Massachusetts and was twice a Visiting Professor at Oberlin Conservatory.

Nina Stern is a founder of a successful hands-on music education project in inner city public school classrooms. The Washington Post applauded this program as a model in its “innovation in the classroom” series (11/9/03). For this important work Ms. Stern was awarded an Endicott Fellowship in 2003 and was honored in 2005 with the “Early Music Brings History Alive” Award, bestowed by Early Music America. Nina Stern served as Director of Education for the New York Collegium from 2002-2007 and consulted for Midori & Friends in 2005, helping them to create a recorder curriculum for their program. She developed a classroom teacher-training course (“Flutes and Drums Around the World”) for the Amherst Early Music Festival and will consult for Carnegie Hall’s Weill Institute beginning in the fall of 2008.

Nina Stern will serve as Visiting Assistant Professor of Recorder at Oberlin Conservatory in the academic year 2008/9.

"a virtuoso of the recorder"
La Liberta, Piacenza, Italy

"a fascinating performance"
La Repubblica, Milan, Italy

"Nina Stern's recorder playing was precise, animated, and moving."
Basellandschaftliche Zeitung, Basel, Switzerland

"Miss Stern played with confidence and finesse...she put on a delightful show of fast fingers."
The New York Times