Bella Hristova

Bella Hristova, violin

Bulgarian-American violinist Bella Hristova has won international acclaim for her “expressive nuance and rich tone” (The New York Times) and “impressive power and control” (The Washington Post). A recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant, she is known for a diverse repertoire, bold programming, and a warmly beguiling stage presence.

Hristova has performed extensively as a soloist with orchestras across the United States, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand, and has held residencies at top conservatories and summer festivals. She has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, and Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Her ongoing commissioning project, Lineage, features six new solo violin works by composers Dai Wei, Gloria Kravchenko, Nokuthula Ngwenyama, Eunike Tanzil, Joan Tower, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, and will be released on Azica Records in 2027. A devoted champion of music by living composers, she has premiered new concertos by Anthony Ritchie and her husband, David Serkin Ludwig.

Hristova’s recordings include Bella Unaccompanied, her Naxos debut, presenting the solo works of Charles de Bériot; the complete Beethoven and Brahms sonatas and an album of French sonatas by Ravel, Poulenc, and Fauré with pianist Michael Houstoun; and Ludwig’s violin concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic.

She began studying violin at six in Bulgaria, later working with Ida Kavafian at the Curtis Institute and Jaime Laredo at Indiana University, and is a winner of the Young Concert Artists International Auditions. She plays a 1655 Nicolò Amati violin once owned by Louis Krasner. Learn more at www.bellahristova.com.