Ania Bard-Schwarz has performed as a recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestra member across Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. She was a winner of the first Gregor Piatigorsky Foundation Competition in 1999 and has subsequently performed 25 recitals in the 1999-2000 season across the United States.
At the age of 8, Ania performed solo with the Great Poland Symphony Orchestra, at 13 at the Mirror Hall of Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and a year later she performed a Saint-Saens Concerto with the Eindhoven Filharmonic (Holland). She became the youngest student at the Maastricht Conservatory of Music, Holland at the age of 14.
Ania earned her high school diploma at 16 from the “School for Talented Youth” in Poznan, Poland. She was a full scholarship recipient at the University of Kansas where she earned her Bachelor of Music and at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, earning the Master of Music degree in 2000.
Between 2001-2006, Ania was a freelance member of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Polish Chamber Philharmonic, Sinfonietta Cracovia, Camerata Stuttgart, and the acclaimed Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, Germany. She performed recitals at Festivals in Ireland and Israel sponsored by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2008, Ania served as Concertmaster of Orquesta Filarmonica de Teatro Municipal de Santiago, Chile.
In 2014, Ania Bard-Schwarz earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of North Texas in violin performance with minor in ethnomusicology. Ms. Bard-Schwarz worked at UNT under the tutelage of Julia Bushkova, also serving as her assistant.
Since 2009, Dr. Bard-Schwarz has served first as interim and then as Concertmaster of the Plano and Irving Symphony Orchestras and as an Associate Musician with the Dallas Opera. She has also been a member of two Baroque ensembles in the DFW area: Orchestra of New Spain and Texas Camerata. In 2012, Dr. Bard-Schwarz was appointed an Adjunct Faculty at Texas Woman’s University. In 2009 and 2010 Dr. Bard-Schwarz served as faculty at the International Chamber Music Festival in Positano, Italy. In the summer of 2015, Dr. Bard-Schwarz performed on baroque and classical violins at a Music Festival in Vietnam.
Ania Bard-Schwarz is an avid propagator of musical education for children, youth, and adults who are underprivileged and do not have access to musical education in their immediate environment. She has been involved in outreach programs as a recitalist and lecturer in Chile, Israel, and the United States.
Dr. Bard-Schwarz comes from a musical family, with both parents being active performers and music educators. While growing up, she performed solo and with her older sisters: a violinist and a pianist in Austria, Holland, Poland, Sweden.
In August 2013, Dr. Bard-Schwarz married her husband Dr. David Bard-Schwarz, an author, scholar and Music Theory Professor at the University of North Texas.