Lindsey Strand-Polyak has been a history nerd since she learned how to read. (Case in point, she taught her second-grade classmates that all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were named after Renaissance artists). When she realized that historical performance allowed her to combine her love of the past with her love of violin playing… the rest, as they say, is history.
Today, Dr. Lindsey Strand-Polyak is a performer, director, scholar, writer, and community organizer. In particular, she has a fascination with the lives of professional musicians, and how they have managed to create meaningful careers for centuries in one of the world’s most bizarre professions. She holds a PhD/MM in Musicology and Violin Performance from the Herb Alpert School of Music at UCLA. Here in the Northwest, she is the new Director of Musique du Jour Presents, the chamber series founded by George Bozarth and Tamara Friedman. She is also Artistic Director of Los Angeles Baroque (celebrating its 10th anniversary this year), Education Director for the Baroque Music Festival, Corona del Mar, and Director of the San Francisco Early Music Society’s Baroque Workshop. She’s lectured on a vast range of topics from Hildegard to Heavy Metal, and has been featured in masterclasses and artist residencies at colleges and universities across the country including: University of Richmond, University of Southern California, Michigan State University, Montana State University, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Sacramento State University, and University of Northern Colorado.When not doing all that, Lindsey is continually exercising her beginner’s mind as a player on viols, and artist/creator as a potter (@baroquenpottery). She splits her time between Whidbey Island, WA and Santa Monica, CA. Follow her exploits and explorations on strandpolyak.com.
