For 35 years, Anne-Sophie Mutter, who was born in 1963 in Rheinfelden in southern Germany, has ranked among the great violin virtuosos of our time. In 1976 she launched her international career at LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF); one year later she appeared as soloist at the Salzburg Whitsun Concerts under the baton of Herbert von Karajan. She has performed ever since in all the major music centers around the world, introducing new works alongside traditional masterpieces and giving equal attention to chamber music and the orchestral repertoire alike. Mutter channels her popularity to benefit charity projects and to champion highly talented young musicians. To this end, in 2008 she founded the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. In January 2011, together with the Berlin Philharmonic under Simon Rattle, Mutter performed Dvořák’s Violin Concerto. This spring, with her ensemble Mutter’s Virtuosi, which comprises current and former scholarship holders from her foundation, she completed a tour of 11 European cities featuring concertos and chamber music by Vivaldi and Mendelssohn as well as contemporary repertoire. And with her longtime piano partner Lambert Orkis she has performed in Germany, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the United States. Mutter has a special interest in the contemporary violin literature: Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, and others have written new works specifically for her. She has received many honors throughout her career, including numerous record awards, the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, and the Leipzig Mendelssohn Prize. Mutter is a bearer of the Grand Order of Merit of the German Federal Republic, the French Order of the Legion of Honor, the Bavarian Order of Merit, and the Great Austrian Order of Merit.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL (IMF) debut on 23 August 1976 as part of the Young Artists series in works by de Falla, Paganini, and Sarasate, with Christoph Mutter on piano.
August 2011