Francesca dePasquale

  • Assistant Professor of Violin

Areas of Study

Education

  • MM, the Juilliard School
  • BM, the Colburn School

Biography

Described by critics as “scintillating” and celebrated for her “rich, expressive playing” (Musical America), violinist Francesca dePasquale was the first-prize winner of the 2010 Irving M. Klein International String Competition and recipient of the prestigious 2014-16 career grant from the Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts.

Earning her the 2015 Classical Recording Foundation Young Artist Award, her self-titled debut album and accompanying recital tour was praised for its “sincerity, intensity” and “individual voice” (Philadelphia Inquirer) and “immaculate and discreet phrasing” (The Strad). DePasquale has been featured by Strings Magazine and on SiriusXM, WNYC, WQXR, WRTI (Philadelphia), and WFMT (Chicago) radio.

An active chamber musician, dePasquale is the violinist of the Aletheia Piano Trio alongside pianist Fei-Fei and cellist Juliette Herlin. She is a member of the artist roster for Manhattan Chamber Players and Noree Chamber soloists, and performs with Chameleon Arts Ensemble, Marinus Ensemble, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. DePasquale has collaborated with a long list of standout musicians including Adrian Brendel, Paul Coletti, Kim Kashkashian, Itzhak Perlman, and Donald Weilerstein, and she has appeared as soloist with the Gustav Mahler Orchestra, the Bach Festival of Philadelphia, Colburn Orchestra, Galesburg Symphony, Peninsula Symphony, and Santa Cruz Symphony, among others.

Before arriving at Oberlin in fall 2020, dePasquale taught for four years at Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts. She is a member of the violin and chamber music faculty for the Juilliard School Pre-College Program and the violin faculty at the Heifetz International Music Institute. She served as the Starling Fellow teaching assistant to Itzhak Perlman from 2013-16 and teaching assistant to Catherine Cho from 2013-18 at the Juilliard School. She was a visiting faculty member at Oberlin in fall 2018.

DePasquale’s teachers have included Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho, and Robert Lipsett. Previous teachers include Hirono Oka and William dePasquale, with additional mentorship from Norman Carol and Arnold Steinhardt.

Classical Recording Foundation (Young Artist of the Year, 2015)

Leonore Annenberg Fellowship Fund for the Performing and Visual Arts (career grant, 2014-16)

Irving M. Klein International String Competition (first prize, 2010)

Spring 2024

Principal Private Study - Violin — PVST 004
Secondary Private Study - Violin — PVST 054
Chamber Music — APST 800
Contemporary Chamber Music — APST 805

Fall 2024

Principal Private Study - Violin — PVST 004
Secondary Private Study - Violin — PVST 054
Chamber Music — APST 800
Contemporary Chamber Music — APST 805

Notes

Violin Professor Francesca dePasquale Featured Teacher for 2023 Starling-DeLay Symposium

May 25, 2023

 

Oberlin violin professor Francesca dePasquale is a featured teacher for the 2023 Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies—a biennial master class series for 12 highly accomplished young violinists. Held at The Juilliard School, the symposium is dedicated to fostering the legacy of the late renowned teacher Dorothy DeLay, a violinist who studied at Oberlin Conservatory in 1933-34.

DePasquale’s May 24 master class showcased her work with five students who brought performances of concertos by Wieniawski, Prokofiev, Sibelius, and Shostakovich, as well as the Bartok Second Rhapsody. It was covered by violinist and writer Laurie Niles in an insightful article for Violinist.com. It provides a window into how dePasquale teaches and thinks about how to deliver great musical performances—and her focus, in this class, "on finding the most ergonomic and tension-free way to play, harnessing the energy of performance, and zooming in on details such as rhythm and articulation to affect the larger musical picture."

News

This Week in Photos: Listening, bell

March 16, 2022

Eboni Johnson, outreach and programming librarian, holds a hand to her ear as a student across the room reads literature written by bell hooks. The public read-in at Mudd Center’s academic commons honors this prolific writter during Women’s History Month. It also serves as inspiration for this week’s photo series.

This Week in Photos: Elections to Mini Pumpkins

November 4, 2020

In this week’s photo series we swing by the voting polls, rub elbows with a professor, linger under a big tent of images, decompress at an outside night concert and faculty recital, pull up a seat at the Cat, head to Finney Chapel for taiko, and pick up a brush to do some mini pumpkin painting.

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