Jaime Laredo

Violinist Jaime Laredo is regarded as one of the top violinists of the late 20th century, especially notable as part of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio. He has also been active as a conductor and educator. Jaime Laredo, in full Jaime Eduardo Laredo y Unzueta, was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia, on June 7, 1941. He took up the violin at five, and within two years, his parents realized that he had a prodigious talent and moved the family to the U.S. so that he could pursue training there. First, they lived in San Francisco, where Laredo gave his debut recital at eight and performed with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. In 1953, the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, so that Jaime could study with Josef Gingold. He also had coaching there from Cleveland Orchestra conductor George Szell, whom he regarded as an important influence. He moved on to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, studying with Ivan Galamian. Laredo won Belgium’s Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1959 and made his debut at Carnegie Hall the following year. Laredo appeared as a soloist with major orchestras in the U.S. and Europe, including the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the London Symphony Orchestra. In 1960, he married pianist Ruth Meckler, who became famous in her own right under the name Ruth Laredo. They divorced in 1974, and Jaime married cellist Sharon Robinson. With her and pianist Joseph Kalichstein, he formed the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, which was in high demand among chamber music bookers for several decades and continued to perform into the 2010s; the group made some 20 recordings, including a complete set of the Brahms piano trios. The trio’s first performance was at the inauguration of U.S. President Jimmy Carter in 1977, and it was formally established in 1981. Laredo also played and recorded a good deal of violin-and-piano chamber music, issuing a complete cycle of Schubert's works in that medium with pianist Stephanie Brown on the Dorian label in 1990. He commissioned several new works, including the duo Conversations and a triple concerto from composer David Ott and a double concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra from Ned Rorem that was performed in Saarbrücken, Germany. Laredo also took up conducting, often appearing with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. One of his earliest recordings, of Albinoni’s Adagio and Pachelbel’s Canon in D major, was made with the latter group for the IMP Classics label in 1985. Laredo and Robinson took up residence in Vermont, where Laredo served as conductor of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra from 1999 to 2021. Including those with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, Laredo has made some 70 recordings, most recently, in 2014, the album Two x Four, with his student Jennifer Koh. He joined the faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2012 and continued to teach there as of the early 2020s. ~ James Manheim