The Grammy Award-winning Minnesota Orchestra, founded in 1903 and led since its centennial by Music Director Osmo Vänskä, is recognized for distinguished performances around the world, award-winning recordings, radio broadcasts, educational engagement programs, and commitment to building the orchestral repertoire of the future. The Orchestra tours regularly throughout Minnesota and nationally, and has toured abroad in Australia, Canada, East Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and South Africa. Recording has been an important part of the organization’s mission since the 1920s. During Vänskä’s tenure, the Orchestra has undertaken acclaimed recordings, including complete cycles of symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven, Jean Sibelius and—now underway—Mahler.

American violinist Erin Keefe, who became concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra in September 2011, has established a reputation as an artist who combines exhilarating temperament and fierce integrity. At Sommerfest 2012 she made her concerto solo debut with the Orchestra, performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, and in May 2014 her solo subscription debut, playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. She was featured as soloist in April 2015 in Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, in May 2016 in performances of Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and most recently in March 2018 in Kurt Weill's Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra. 

Winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Pro Musicis International Award as well as numerous international competitions, she has appeared as soloist in recent seasons with the Minnesota Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony, New York City Ballet Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra, Turku Philharmonic, Sendai Philharmonic and the Gottingen Symphony and has given recitals throughout the United States, Austria, Italy, Germany, Korea, Poland, Finland, Japan and Denmark.