ArcoStrum

Lauded as a winner – and Audience Prize recipient – of the 2023 Concert Artists Guild (CAG) Victor Elmaleh Competition in New York and the first-ever violin-guitar duo to win the competition in its 70+ year history, ArcoStrum consists of three-time international First Prize-winning violinist Strauss Shi and TY Zhang, the Grand Prize winner of the Guitar Foundation of America-International Concert Artist Competition (GFA-ICAC).

Upcoming highlights of ArcoStrum’s 2024-2025 season include debuts at Merkin Hall, Krannert Center, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Howland Chamber Music Circle, Rancho La Puerta, and Harry Jacobs Chamber Music Society. Recent seasons have featured performances at Carnegie Hall Citywide, Strings Music Festival, Omni Foundation for the Performing Arts, Festival Cultural Zacatecas (Mexico), National Sawdust, Austin Chamber Music Festival, and Caramoor.

ArcoStrum captures the hearts of audiences through Strauss and TY’s charisma, dazzling virtuosity, and onstage chemistry. The duo champions unique concert programming through original transcriptions of beloved classical repertoire and traditional Chinese instrumental music infused with modern instrumentations, as well as virtuosic non-classical instrumental progressive rock. The group’s name is a portmanteau fusing a bowing technique for the violin and the motion used to create sound on a guitar.

TY and Strauss met at The Juilliard School and soon discovered their chemistry not only as friends but in music-making. ArcoStrum is committed to pushing boundaries and redefining the 21st-century violin-guitar art form, presenting a new chamber music that is mixed-genre, multi-cultural, and cross-era.