Carolin Widmann

Born in Munich, Carolin Widmann trained with Igor Ozim in Cologne, Michèle Auclair in Boston, and David Takeno in London. She is a regular guest at renowned festivals in Lucerne, Schleswig-Holstein, and Salzburg, at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, the Festival D’Automne in Paris, as well as at chamber music festivals in Lockenhaus, Heimbach, and Jerusalem. As a soloist, Carolin Widmann has performed with the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Orchestre National de France (Paris), the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the RSO Vienna, the BBC Symphony Orchestra London, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and the China Philharmonic Orchestra Beijing under conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Sir Roger Norrington, Silvain Cambreling, Vladimir Jurowski, Emanuel Krivine, Peter Eötvös, and Heinz Holliger. In the 2011/12 season, Carolin Widmann will, among other engagements, perform the world premiere of Rebecca Saunders' violin concerto "still" with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Sylvain Cambreling, as part of the Beethovenfest in Bonn. Furthermore, she will premiere the choreographic concert "gefaltet" by renowned Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz, featuring music by Mozart and Mark André, at the Salzburg Mozart Week 2012. Performances of the project are planned in Berlin, Zurich, and Luxembourg. Carolin Widmann's debut CD "Reflections I" was awarded the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics' Annual Award) in 2006. In September 2008, her first album with ECM was released, featuring the Schumann Sonatas, which she recorded with Dénes Várjon, and which received high praise from the press. Her CD "Phantasy of Spring," released in autumn 2009, featuring works by Feldman, Zimmermann, Schönberg, and Xenakis, was awarded the Diapason d'Or and the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik 2010 in the Chamber Music category. In 2012, ECM will also release a recording of the Feldman Violin Concerto as well as a CD with pieces by Franz Schubert, which she recorded with pianist Alexander Lonquich. Beyond her solo activities, Carolin Widmann has been a professor of violin at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater 'Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy' in Leipzig since October 2006 and was recently appointed to take over the artistic direction of Germany's oldest chamber music festival, the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, starting in 2012. Carolin Widmann plays a G.B. Guadagnini violin from 1782.