Mark Kaplan has established himself as one of the leading violinists of his generation. His consummate artistry has resulted in solo engagements with nearly every major North American orchestra, and with many of the world’s foremost conductors, among them Ormandy, Tennstedt, Maazel, Dutoit, Rattle, Bychkov, and Masur.

Mark Kaplan has maintained a flourishing international career since his European debut in 1975 when he was asked on short notice to substitute for Pinchas Zuckerman, playing the Bartók Concerto in Cologne under the baton of Lawrence Foster. In subsequent seasons he has made highly acclaimed concerto and recital appearances in all the musical centres of Europe – London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Prague, Zurich, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Milan – as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

In addition to his solo music-making, Mark Kaplan is also devoted to chamber music. He appears with pianist Yael Weiss and cellist Peter Stumpf as the Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio, with recordings and concerts tours world-wide. Prior to that he performed and recorded extensively for two decades in the Golub-Kaplan-Carr trio, with cellist Colin Carr and the late pianist David Golub.

Mark Kaplan has a wide range of repertoire available on CD. His second recording of the solo violin works of JS Bach was issued in 2016 by Bridge Records, and due for release in 2022 is a Weiss-Kaplan-Stumpf Trio recording of Beethoven’s complete works for Piano Trio. Other recent recordings include concerti of Berg and Stravinsky, the Lalo Symphonie Espagnole and the Concierto Espagnol of Joan Manen, all under the baton of Lawrence Foster. Mark Kaplan’s discography also includes the Bartók Violin Concerto No. 2 and Dohnanyi Violin Concerto No. 2, violin concerti of Paganini, Wieniawski and Viotti; the Brahms Double Concerto; Spanish Dances of Sarasate; various works of Bartók including the Solo Sonata; violin and piano sonatas of Schumann with Anton Kuerti; and trios of Brahms, Debussy, Dvorak, Fauré, Mendelssohn, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saens, Schubert, Smetana and Tchaikowsky. The Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio’s recording, on Arabesque Records, of Tchaikovsky and Smetana trios, received an INDIE Award for “Best Classical Album by an Ensemble.”

Since 2005, Mark Kaplan has been Professor of Violin at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, and prior to that, he served as Professor with Distinction at UCLA. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where he was a student of Dorothy DeLay. Mark Kaplan plays a violin made by Antonio Stradivari in 1685, known as the Marquis.