What’s another word for someone who is incredibly humble? Whatever the word is, you’ll undoubtedly find a photo of double bassist Nina Bernat’s lovely smiling face next to it in the Webster’s Dictionary. Already a celebrity, 25-year-old Bernat is acclaimed for the expressiveness and depth of her playing and the technical mastery she displays in every performance. Oregon ArtsWatch calls her “a poetic powerhouse”. The Minnesota Star Tribune says, she is a “standout”. Earrelevant.net referred to Bernat’s performances as “astonishing”.
When pianist Mary Jo Gothmann’s teenage daughter learned her mother would be playing with Bernat for her Performance Today Young Artist Residency, she reportedly had a fan-girl moment. And, during Bernat’s residency, she played a sold-out concert at local Minneapolis jazz lounge Berlin; the concert only had seven days of promotion.
Bernat is on the faculty at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, New York. She is a regular fill-in musician with the New York Philharmonic and Bernat has performed as a soloist with such orchestras as the Minnesota Orchestra, the Israel and Oslo Philharmonics. A passionate chamber musician, she has also appeared at Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at well-known festivals as Marlboro Music in Vermont, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland and Music@Menlo in California.
A multi-prize winner, Bernat was a recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the CAG Elmaleh Competition in 2023. Other awards include the 1st prize at the Barbash J.S. Bach String Competition and the Minnesota Orchestra Young Artist Competition.
Bernat grew up in a musical household where everyone played an instrument; her dad, Mark Bernat, an internationally recognized double bassist was Bernat’s teacher for the first ten years of her music education journey. With all the previously mentioned accolades and celebrity associated with Nina Bernat, she remains effortlessly easygoing, gracious and refreshingly thoughtful of others.
Bernat holds both a bachelor's and master’s degree in music performance from The Juilliard School of Music in New York City where she will also obtain her Artist Diploma in 2025.
Bernat appears in these performances with Minnesota-based pianist Mary Jo Gothmann.
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