Julia Fischer

Julia Fischer, who was born in 1983 in Munich as the daughter of a Slovakian pianist and  a German mathematician, was four when she started studying piano with her mother and began shortly after to learn violin. In 1992 she became a pupil of Ana Chumachenco at the Munich Academy of Music, whose professorship she took over in 2011. Fischer came into the international spotlight when she won the Yehudi Menuhin Competition in 1995 and the Eurovision Competition in 1996, soon thereafter beginning to work with celebrated conductors and major orchestras. For example, in the 2014-15 season she participated in tours with the Russian State Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski and with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic under Yuri Temirkanov. She has concertized with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. Other credits include programs with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, and the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics. In 2011 Fischer joined with the violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, the violist Nils Mönkemeyer, and the cellist Benjamin Nyffenegger to found her own quartet; in 2015 she performed with her quartet in such cities as Vienna, Zurich, and Berlin. In addition she has given recitals with Yulianna Avdeeva and Igor Levit. For her recordings Fischer has garnered such distinctions as the Gramophone Award, the Cannes Classical Award, the ECHO Klassik, and the German Record Critics’ Prize. In 2011 she received the German Culture Prize. Along with her career as a violin virtuoso, Julia Fischer has never abandoned the piano: at the Alte Oper Frankfurt in 2008 she played both Grieg’s Piano Concerto and a violin concerto Saint-Saëns on the same program. 

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 11 September 2001 playing works by Tartini, Beethoven, and Strauss, with Milana Chernyavska at the keyboard.

June 2015