Margaret Batjer has served as concertmaster of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra since 1998.  She made her first solo appearance at age 15 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Since that debut, she has appeared with a succession of leading American orchestras, including the CSO again, the Philadelphia Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and the New York String Orchestra.  Batjer has performed with such European ensembles as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Hallé Orchestra, among others.

An esteemed chamber musician, Batjer was a longtime participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, and often performed on tours with Music From Marlboro.  Summers have found her performing in the Minnesota Orchestra Summerfest, the La Jolla Summerfest, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, and in the Naples and Cremona festivals in Italy.  As a member of the Quartetto Accardo, Batjer appeared at the Salzburg Festival in 1995 and 1999, and at La Scala, Carnegie Hall, and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London.

Batjer is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Ivan Galamian and David Cerone.  Among her most noteworthy performances in the ensuing years have been traversals of the complete Beethoven and Brahms Violin Sonata cycles in partnership with pianist Jeffrey Kahane, at Zipper Hall in Los Angeles.  Another highlight found Batjer in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, in partnership with Yo-Yo Ma, Jeffrey Kahane and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. 

Batjer’s recordings include two performances of the Bach Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, the first for the Philips label, with Salvatore Accardo and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and also a Deutsche Grammophon recording pairing Batjer with Hilary Hahn as the other violin soloist, with Jeffrey Kahane conducting the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.  Her participation in a performance of Ned Rorem’s Water Music for Violin and Clarinet, with the LACO, was a foray into recording contemporary music.  Batjer has also made numerous chamber music recordings on the EMI, Nuova Era and BMG labels.

In 2008, Margaret Batjer and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra launched the innovative series, Westside Connections, pairing chamber music with other artistic disciplines in programs at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. As well as her extensive performing career, Ms. Batjer is an Adjunct Professor of Violin at the USC Thornton School of Music.