Profile

Violinist Anna Presler specializes in performance of contemporary and classical chamber music. At the School of Music at Sacramento State, where she has taught since the mid 1990s, she is chair for the String Area and teaches undergraduate and graduate students in violin and chamber music, as well as general education courses. Her former students can be found teaching and making music across California and beyond.

A member of San Francisco’s Left Coast Ensemble since 1994, she performs every season on the ensemble's annual five concert subscription series in the San Francisco Bay Area. She also served as the group's artistic director from 2007 to 2023. Under her leadership Left Coast commissioned and premiered operas, multimedia pieces, and chamber music works, was awarded grants from the NEA, SF Arts Council, California Arts Council, Wattis Foundation, Bernard Osher Foundation, Aaron Copland Fund, Amphion, and many other foundations, and tripled its annual budget. In addition, in recent years Presler has performed as resident artist at the Red Note and Wunsch New Music Festivals, and at Music Decanted, Virginia Tech, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Valley of the Moon Music Festival--where performers mentor apprentice musicians and play classical and romantic music on gut strings and period pianos.

In addition to being a member of the Grammy nominated New Century Chamber Orchestra for two decades, Presler was a fellow at the Banff Art Center, the International Music Seminar at Cornwall, and Tanglewood Music Center.  A graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts, Yale University, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, she studied violin with Jerrie Lucktenberg, Elaine Richey, Sidney Harth, Syoko Aki, and Ian Swensen. Chamber music mentors include Eugene Lehner, Gil Kalish, Julius Levine, members of the Tokyo Quartet, and Mark Sokol.

In the 2025/2026 season she performs Brahms Double Concerto with cellist Leighton Fong and the Ukiah Symphony, Clarice Assad's Amazonia Sem Lai with the Sacramento State Wind Ensemble, and Lei Liang's Gobi Gloria at the American Philosophical Association in La Jolla, California. Fall and spring concerts with Left Coast will include Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale paired with a world premiere from David Dominique, and music of Mahler, Roberto Sierra, Bahar Royaee, Richard Strauss and others.

PRESS
“Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello was the most demanding item, for listeners and performers alike. Fong and Presler played with astonishing rapport, and took the audience through a wide range of musical experience, from the exultant to the elegiac to the intensely still... For all of these delights, it would have been worth coming out simply to hear Presler and Zivian play two short pieces (the Deux Morceaux: Nocturne & Cortège) by Lili Boulanger. What a rare gift for communication this violinist has. From the first phrase onward the directness and eloquence of what she had to say were in evidence. I cannot remember the last time I experienced so much sheer joy from hearing live music.”  - San Francisco Classical Voice

"The Dvorák performance was hearty and sublime in turn. Presler (a most impressive violinist), Zivian, and cellist Tanya Tomkins lived and transmitted the drama of the first movement (justifiably called “Brahmsian” in the program); evoked deep emotion with the highly operatic Poco Adagio; and then blazed to glory with the Finale.” - San Francisco Classical Voice

"They ended the programme with an effusive, exploratory reading of the Schumann Op.47 piano quartet, proving that intelligent music-making is, indeed, timeless. " - Financial Times of London

"Presler and Zivian saved the best for last, though. Closing the program with Robert Schumann’s late-life Violin Sonata in A Minor, these two artists summoned an enveloping atmosphere of turbulence and rapture. The first movement sounded lush and gorgeous; the central Allegretto lacked nothing in wit and charm. The whirling finale seemed the essence of Schumann’s restless, mercurial spirit; this was a deeply felt performance from Schumann, with love.” - San Francisco Classical Voice

"This led seamlessly to another piece by Rohde, his  …maestoso…misterioso… for amplified violin and viola and assorted objects. Presler joined with the composer to play the mesmerizing piece with a devotion and loving lyricism rarely heard in contemporary music.” - San Francisco Classical Voice

Personal Website

Left Coast Chamber Ensemble