Vesna Stefanovich-Gruppman

Who is Vesna Stefanovich-Gruppman?

Vesna Stefanovich-Gruppman is a violin and viola professor at the Rotterdam Conservatory, a position she has held since 2006.

Stefanovich was born in Serbia which was then part of Yugoslavia. She met her future husband, Igor Gruppman, while they were both students at the Moscow Conservatory.

Vesna Stefanovich’s solo career began when she was still a teenager, receiving First Prize at the Jaroslav Kocián International Violin Competition and becoming the first artist to win the National Violin Competition in her native Yugoslavia six times in a row. By the age of sixteen, she had performed as a soloist with such ensembles as the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic and the Prague Philharmonic.

She graduated from the Moscow Central Special School of Music and received her doctorate in performance and pedagogy from the Moscow Conservatoire, where she studied under the legendary teachers Yuri Yankelevich and Igor Bezrodny. Later, she studied with David Oistrakh.

Vesna Stefanovich-Gruppman also enjoys a pedagogical career. She is director of the Gruppman International Music Institute and teaches violin and viola at the Rotterdam Conservatory. In 2002, the American String Teachers Association honoured Vesna Stefanovich-Gruppman with the “Colleague Teacher of the Year” award.