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 Apollo's Fire, 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, Armenia and The Middle East as a soloist and with the ensemble “East of the River”. Her latest album “Rose of the Compass” was released in June of 2011.

Ms. Stern has served on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music - where she directed the Historical Performance Program from 1989 to 1996 – the Milano Civica Scuola di Musica, the Five Colleges in Western Massachusetts and was twice a Visiting Assistant Professor of Recorder at Oberlin Conservatory. She has coached recorder players in Juilliard’s Historical Performance program.

Nina Stern is the founder of S'Cool Sounds, 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 has consulted for Midori & Friends and for Carnegie Hall’s Weill Institute, helping each to develop a recorder curriculum for their music education programs. Nina Stern is the author of two books, "Recorders Without Borders", of traditional music from around the world, written and arranged for recorders and percussion. She developed a classroom teacher-training course (“Flutes and Drums Around the World”) for the Amherst Early Music Festival and has traveled around the country and abroad to introduce her "Recorders Without Borders" program to school children and their teachers.

"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