Christina Day Martinson, violin

Born in Saskatchewan, Canada, Christina Day Martinson has been a featured soloist with Boston Baroque, Handel & Haydn Society, Joshua Rifkin's Bach Ensemble, Tempesta di Mare, the UNICAMP Symphony Orchestra (Brazil) and the Symphony Orkest Mozart in Amsterdam. A recipient of the Netherland-America Foundation Grant and Frank Huntington Beebe Award, Ms. Martinson holds degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music, the Royal Conservatory in The Netherlands and received her Master of Music degree in Historical Performance from Boston University.

Ms. Martinson serves as concertmaster for Boston Baroque, and is associate concertmaster for the Handel and Haydn Society. She has served as concertmaster under conductors such as Roger Norrington, Richard Egarr, Bernard Labadie, Nicholas McGegan, Lawrence Cummings & Harry Christophers, among others. She has performed at the Spoleto Festival dei due Mondi (Italy), the SHIRA International Orchestra, (Israel), the Aston Magna Music Festival, the Carmel Bach Festival, the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, the Montreal Bach Festival and the Boston Early Music Festival.

She has given chamber music recitals in Jordan Hall as well as a nationally televised chamber concert in Japan’s Ishihara Hall in June 2006. Ms. Martinson is a member of Joshua Rifkin’s renowned Bach Ensemble and has performed at the Turingen Bachwonen Festival in Germany, at the Leuven Festival in Belgium and travels yearly to Germany to perform with the Bach Ensemble. She performed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in 2008 and Bach’s E major Concerto in 2009 on Boston Baroque’s main series and at the Pablo Casals Festival in Puerto Rico. In 2008 Ms. Martinson recorded Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with Boston Baroque for Telarc Records. The CD was released in January, 2009. “This is story-telling par excellence, Martinson’s polished technique and elegant musicianship fired in the kiln of imagination to produce mind-pictures of such vividness that the Greek term ekphrasis, with all its rhetorical associations, hardly covers it” Gramophone, May, 2009.

Christina Day Martinson has been recently nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for her tour-de-force performance of the complete cycle of Heinrich Biber’s The Mystery Sonatas, with Boston Baroque, released April 27 on Linn Records. “Luminous…Achieving a wide range of hues in her tone, Martinson plays the expressive pieces flawlessly,.....The sound quality of these first-rate performances is clear, vivid, and present." —Early Music America

“Christina Day Martinson makes light of the virtuosity of this deeply profound music.” —The Strad

In addition to the GRAMMY® Award nomination, The Mystery Sonatas has been praised by critics and audiences, and recently named one of the "Best Classical Recordings of 2018" by both the Chicago Tribune and Boston Globe. In his recommendation, David Weininger of the Globe writes, "Ably supported by three Boston Baroque colleagues, the orchestra’s concertmaster bypasses mere virtuosity and gives earthy and dramatic performances of these treacherously difficult pieces."

“Her playing in each work combined a secure grasp of period style with a fearless technique and, best of all, a delightful sense of spontaneity and imagination” - Boston Globe