Bio : Artists

Leonid Finkelshteyn : Double Bass

Bassist Leonid Finkelshteyn enjoys an active career as a performer and teacher. Currently principal bassist of the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and the Eastern Festival Orchestra in North Carolina, Mr. Finkelshteyn serves on the faculty of East Carolina University in Greenville, NC in addition to maintaining a large private studio. He has served on the faculty at the Eastern Music Festival since 1999. As a soloist, he has made numerous concerto appearances with both the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra in Door County, WI, of which he was principal bassist for 15 years. Such concerto performances included works by Koussevitzky, Bottesini, Tubin and the North American premiere of Gareth Glyn?s Microncerto. Most recently Mr. Finkelshteyn gave the world premiere of Antaeus by J. Mark Scearce, a concerto for double bass and orchestra, with the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, commissioned by the orchestra for Mr. Finkelshteyn. Other artistic pursuits include tours with the New York Philharmonic, with which he recently traveled the United States and the Far East, the Chicago Symphony and the Philharmonia Hungarica in addition to appearing with the St. Louis, Cincinnati and Dallas symphonies as guest principal bassist. He has also performed with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Milwaukee Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony. A native of Leningrad, in the former Soviet Union, Mr. Finkelshteyn joined the Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad Philharmonic at only 19 years of age while still a student at the Leningrad Conservatory from which he earned a Master of Music degree graduating with honors. His primary teachers were Peter Weinblatt and Serge Akopov. Eventually, he became principal bassist of the Symphony Orchestra and was a prize winner of the Soviet Union Bass Competition before emigrating to the U.S. in 1990.