Steve Kindler is an internationally recognized Violinist, who has pioneered work with multi-stringed electric violins.
He began his career in music at 10 years old playing with the Portland Youth Philharmonic, and by 14 was touring internationally with the orchestra. At 16 he received a scholarship to study at Tanglewood institute under the batons of Leonard Bernstein, Seigi Ozawa, and studied privately with Eugene Lehner and Roman Totenberg.
At 18, he was invited to join the inovative Jazz Fusion ensemble The Mahavishnu Orchestra where he played with greats John McLaughlin, Jean Luc Ponty, and Narada Michael Waldon. After touring for a year and a half and recording the Mahavishnu album 'Visions Of The Emerald Beyond', he was asked by Jan Hammer to record and become a part of his new 4 piece ensemble including Doug Rauch and Tony Smith. This led to the formation of the Jeff Beck/Jan Hammer Group and 3 more years of world tours. During this time Steve recorded on 'The First Seven Days', 'Oh Yeah', and 'Melodies' with Jan Hammer Group and 'Jeff Beck Live' with Jeff.
From '74-'79, during his time living in New York City, he also played with Cat Stevens, Perry Robinson and the Brubeck Brothers (Darius Chris and Dan), Oregon members Collin Walcot, Glen Moore and Paul McCandless, and jazz piano great Kenny Werner.
In 1975 Steve was given his first multi-stringed violin from the Barcus-Berry company. During this time he also played in the group Spring Flowers with Hindustani sarod master Vasant Rai. Steve then left New York City and moved to Hawaii where he played 1st Violin in the Honolulu Symphony. This gave him the opportunity to play with Robert LaMarchina, Leonard Panerio, Maxim and Dmitri Shostokovitch, YoYo Ma, Schlomo Mintz, and many others.
During the 1980's Steve became one of the first exponents of the New Age music genre and produced a number of innovative and influential recordings that featured Zakir Hussein, Randy Jackson, Juaquin Lievano, Susan Cianni, David Friesen, Paul Lloyd Warner, Georgia Kelly, Paul Horn, Teja Bell, Casey Scheuerell, Jim Berenger, Carlos Reyes, and more. His album 'Dolphin Smiles' (with Teja Bell), considered now to be a new age classic, was a top ten album on the billboard charts for 7 weeks, where he simultaniously was in the classical charts with harpist Georgia Kelly. Steve was also on the cover of Billboard Magazine beneath the headline, "Superstars of New Age". He also produced a number of albums for various artists from CBS-Sony.
The 80's also saw Steve co-found an ethnic fusion ensemble "Barfoot" with Berkeley drummer Clay Henry. This innovative music pointed the way for many others into what would soon be termed World Music. In 1987 Steve was invited to be the Violinist on the first western tours of New Age music pioneer Kitaro. His violin can be heard on Kitaro's album 'Kojiki'.
In 1983, Steve began work with master luthier, Steve Klein on the design and production of his first 6 String Electric Violin. Though years he has actively developed multi stringed instruments, a process that culminated in him being given the worlds only 9 string violin, made by John Jordan.
Steve is currently performing on the John Jordan 9 String Electric Violin.
