Corinne Stillwell

Violinist Corinne Stillwell has enjoyed an active and varied career as a performer, mentor, and arts advocate. Her performance background began when she was selected to enter The Juilliard School at the age of ten, subsequently spending 15 years working with the famed pedagogue Dorothy DeLay. With early successes as the winner of numerous competitions, her concert career has since included a wide range of solo appearances, orchestral leadership, and chamber music collaborations.

As a frequent concerto soloist, Stillwell has been featured more than 50 times with orchestras including the New Jersey Symphony, the Nanjing Philharmonic in China, the Amarillo Symphony, the Greater Rochester Women’s Philharmonic, and on tour to Romania, Hungary, and Poland. As a recitalist, she has performed at Carnegie’s Weill Hall, Chicago’s Dame Myra Hess series, and in Germany, Canada, and across the United States.

Currently Concertmaster of the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, she has been a frequent orchestral leader for more than 25 years, having served as Concertmaster of the Amarillo Symphony, Brevard Music Center Orchestra, Janiec Opera Company, and the School of American Ballet Orchestra; Guest Concertmaster of the Nanjing Philharmonic in China; and Associate Concertmaster of the Rochester Philharmonic and the Victoria Bach Festival. She is also a member of the Arizona MusicFest, an ensemble comprised of colleagues from major symphony orchestras across the country, from New York and Boston to Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

An avid chamber musician, Stillwell has been featured on NPR’s Performance Today; was a founding member of Trio Solis; and has collaborated with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, violinist Mikhail Kopelman, and members of the Ying, Cavani, Pro Arte, and Carpe Diem quartets. She has also performed at Alice Tully Hall and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City, Chamber Music Rochester, the Amarillo Chamber Music Society, Kosciuszko Foundation, and the American Festival of Microtonal Music. Other festival appearances include Saarburg (Germany), Aspen, Norfolk, and Skaneateles. As a member of the Harrington String Quartet, she performed extensively across the Midwest, from Texas to Wisconsin. Other projects with the Quartet included a PBS documentary, TV and radio broadcasts, and collaborations with clarinetist David Shifrin, pianist Robert Levin, and guitarist Pepé Romero. Her mentors have included members of the Juilliard, Cleveland, Amadeus, and Vermeer quartets, and her chamber recordings can be heard on Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, Navona, and MSR Classics.

Stillwell is also a dedicated teacher, empowering young musicians on their paths into a variety of careers, including professors, orchestral and chamber performers, high school orchestra directors, private studio teachers, music therapists, and teaching artists. Appointed to the faculty at Florida State University in 2007, she also taught at the Brevard Music Center from 2009-2022, and has given masterclasses at many music schools, including the Eastman School of Music and Vanderbilt University. Previously, she served on the faculties of West Texas A&M University, Kinhaven Music School, Point CounterPoint Music Festival, and the Hochstein School of Music, where she was the Director of Chamber Music.

With a passion for community engagement activities, Stillwell created “Building Bridges” in 2018, a multi-year project featuring performances of the complete Beethoven String Quartets in collaboration with advanced FSU students. She has taught courses for senior adults at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and is currently the coach and mentor for the educational performance activities of the Carriola Quartet, Sinfonia Gulf Coast’s Quartet-in-Residence. She also curates a series of chamber music concerts in our community as Co-Artistic Director of Music For Food Tallahassee, a nation-wide musician-led initiative to fight hunger and further social justice.