Miriam Fried has played with virtually every major orchestra in the United States and Europe. In recent seasons she has appeared with such leading ensembles as the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Orchestre de Paris and the Czech Philharmonic. In 1993 she premiered a violin concerto written for her by Donald Erb with the Grand Rapids Symphony. She actively maintains chamber music as an important part of her musical life. She was first violin of the Mendelssohn String Quartet for ten years and collaborates regularly with her son, pianist Jonathan Biss. A renowned educator, Miriam Fried is on the faculty of the New England Conservatory and gives masterclasses around the world. She was artistic director of the Ravinia Steans Music Institute from 1993 to 2023. Miriam Fried plays a particularly remarkable violin, a 1718 Stradivarius said to have been the favourite instrument of its eighteenth-century owner, composer and conductor Louis Spohr.