When Brazilian violinist Samuel Frois began playing violin at the age of 9 with his local youth orchestra, he learned to play music by ear. He didn’t actually begin learning to read music until he started taking private lessons a few years later, around the age of 12. The 12-year-old Frois was so serious about playing the violin that he himself cold-called professional players asking them to be his teacher. Since that time, Frois has earned a bachelors degree from the Mannes School of Music in violin performance; he became Concertmaster of The Orchestra Now (TON); he was a four-time recipient of the Latin Grammy Cultural Foundation Scholarship; he won 2nd prize in the 2023 Sphinx Orchestral Excerpts Competition; and now, he is a Performance Today Young Artist in Residence. If you were to ask Frois what he loves most about music, he’d likely talk about how music is deeply reflective of the human experience. And, if you were to hear him perform, this belief in the power of music to foster connection really comes through in the vulnerability and the passion of his playing.
Frois grew up in Contagem, a city in the center of the state of Minas Gerais, in Brazil. He came from a very musical family where everyone was active in church singing and playing music. These days, Frois frequently collaborates with both the Nashville and Richmond Symphonies, and in May of 2025, he obtained a master's degree in orchestral studies from The Orchestra Now at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
Frois appears in these recordings with pianist Neilson Chen.
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