Hagai Shaham

Combined with his career as a performer Hagai Shaham teaches violin playing and conducts master classes, primarily in Israel and Europe. He was a faculty member of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. In 2007, he joined the music faculty at the renowned Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California (USC; where Jasha Heifetz has taught violin playing). Since 2009 he has been a professor at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music (formerly the Samuel Rubin Israel Academy of Music), in the Faculty of Arts at Tel Aviv University. He is currently teaching at Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY. In the summer months, he teaches at the Heifetz International Music Institute in Staunton, VA.

In September 1990, Hagai Shaham and his duo partner Arnon Erez won the first prize at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in the Violin-Piano duo category, the first competitors to be awarded this coveted first prize since 1971. His other awards include first prizes at the Ilona Kornhouser competition, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority Young Artist competition, The Tel-Aviv Rubin Academy competition, four Clairmont Awards, and annual scholarship from the American-Israel Cultural Foundation.

As a soloist he has performed with many of the world's major orchestras, including the English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Belgian National Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique Francais, National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. In 1985 he was invited to join Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman in a gala concert at Carnegie Hall, following which Zubin Mehta invited him to perform Brahms' Double Concerto at Carnegie Hall. In 2006 Hagai Shaham was again invited by Zubin Mehta to play Brahms' Double Concerto, together with cellist Mischa Maisky, to celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hagai Shaham (Hebrew: חגי שחם ‎, born July 8, 1966) is an acclaimed Israeli violin virtuoso. He began studying the violin at the age of six and was the last student of the late Professor Ilona Feher. He is also a violin teacher, and a professor at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music (formerly the Samuel Rubin Israel Academy of Music), in the Faculty of Arts at Tel Aviv University.

Hagai Shaham has found unpublished compositions of Joseph Achron (1886–1943) at the National Library at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and performed and recorded them (short pieces, some appearing for the first time). A CD was published in 1997 by Biddulph Recordings, London. An expanded version of this CD, with Achron's complete suites for violin and piano (2 CDs) has been published by Hyperion in 2012.

About half of Joseph Achron's compositions (over 100 total) were unpublished in his lifetime (1886–1943). By sheer luck the manuscripts have been saved from disposal and arrived in the Hebrew University (see more in the CD's elaborated notes, in English, Hebrew, and Yiddish).