Julia Fischer Violin Recital

German violinist Julia Fischer is recognized worldwide for possessing a talent of uncommon ability and as an exceptionally gifted artist, reflected in the numerous awards and effusive reviews she has received for both her live performances and recordings, including being named “Artist of the Year” at The Gramophone Awards in 2007 and “Instrumentalist of the Year” at the 2009 MIDEM Classical Awards.
Born in Munich, Ms. Fischer began learning the violin at age three and soon thereafter started taking piano lessons. She became a pupil of Ana Chumachenco at the Munich Academy of Music and at just 11-years-old won the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, an event that catapulted her towards an international career as a soloist.
Julia Fischer has since appeared regularly with the world’s most celebrated orchestras and conductors. In recent seasons, concerto highlights have included orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. Ms. Fischer has worked with conductors of the highest level including Blomstedt, Eschenbach, Vladimir Jurowski, Paavo Järvi, Maazel, Marriner, Salonen, Temirkanov, Welser-Möst, and Zinman.
An avid recitalist and chamber musician, Ms. Fischer has performed in the world’s great concert halls and in festivals across Europe, including at the Musikverein Vienna, Palais des Beaux Arts, Berlin Philharmonie, and Carnegie Hall in New York, and at the BBC Proms, Salzburg Easter Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, and Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Ms. Fischer was Artist in Residence at Konzerthaus Berlin during the 2012-13 season and at Dresdner Philharmonie during the 2013-14 season; London’s Wigmore Hall additionally dedicated to Ms. Fischer a Perspective Series throughout the 2013-14 season. Ms. Fischer will open the 2014-15 season with concerts at the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, performing in recital with Igor Levit and in concert with the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin under the baton of Michael Sanderling. Following an appearance with Daniel Müller-Schott at the Festival
Herbstliche Musiktage, Ms. Fischer embarks on a recital tour of France with Yulianna Avdeeva. A tour of Germany with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia and Vladimir Jurowski will see Ms. Fischer perform the rarely programmed Schumann violin concerto and include the first out of three concerts which will showcase Ms. Fischer as first Artist in Residence at Frankfurt’s concert series Pro Arte; she also tours Switzerland in the role of conductor and soloist with pianist Oliver Schnyder and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and appears in major venues throughout Europe alongside the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Temirkanov. Further highlights as soloist include the Philharmonia Orchestra/Hrůša, MDR Symphony/Kristjan Järvi, Boston Symphony/Dutoit, Czech Philharmonic/Zinman, and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich/Bringuier. Summer 2015 will see Ms. Fischer performing at major festivals ? at Grafenegg Music Festival, at the Kissinger Summer Music Festival with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Blomstedt, at the Rheingau Music Festival with Jordan ? as well as on a European tour with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony/Sanderling performing Katchaturian. The 2014-15 season will also include a tour of Europe with the Julia Fischer Quartet, which was founded by Ms. Fischer in the 2011-12 season and garnered ecstatic acclaim from public and critics alike for Ms. Fischer, violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, violist Nils Mönkemeyer and cellist Benjamin Nyffenegger.

With his highly virtuosic yet unpretentious style, pianist Martin Helmchen continues to impress the international music scene including superb debuts with Berlin Philharmonic and Herbert Blomstedt, Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev, London Philharmonic and Vladimir Jurowski and with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons. In the USA, he has made his concerto debuts with New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall and at the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, on both occasions under the baton of Christoph von Dohnányi.

Martin Helmchen’s quest for exploring all facets of music making is born in his passion for collaboration, not only with orchestras, but also through chamber music and recitals – largely ignited in early collaborations with the late cellist Boris Pergamenschikow. Since 2010, Martin Helmchen has been an Associate Professor of chamber music at the Kronberg Academy.

In 2016/17, Martin Helmchen is guest soloist with major European orchestras including Hallé Orchestra Manchester under the baton of Andrew Manze, Philharmonia Orchestra and Herbert Blomstedt, Santa Cecilia Rom and David Afkham, Gewandhaus Orchester with Herbert Blomstedt, Nederlands Filharmonisch Orkest and Marc Albrecht, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Philippe Herreweghe as well as the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under Sir Roger Norrington. In France he tours with La Chambre Philharmonique under Emmanuel Krivine.

A passionate chamber musician, Martin Helmchen also continues a further collaboration with Julia Fischer on a tour of major cities in Asia. He gives solo recitals and duo performances with his wife and cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker in London, Paris, Brussels and in Germany where he is artist in residence at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival in 2017.

For PentaTone, Helmchen has recorded Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Dvořák concertos as well as solo recordings and chamber music by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. His latest CD for outhere music contains both Brahms cello sonatas with Marie-Elisabeth Hecker.

Former student of Galina Iwanzowa in Berlin, Martin Helmchen still receives tutelage from Arie Vardie at the Hochschule für Musik, Hannover. Other mentors, with whom Martin regularly continues to study, are Alfred Brendel and William Grant Naboré from the Klavierakademie Comer See. An early impact on Helmchen’s career was winning the ?2001 Clara Haskil Competition”. He was a Fellow of the “Borletti-Buitoni-Trust in 2005” and the “Credit Suisse Young Artist” in 2006 culminating with his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Valery Gergiev at the Lucerne Festival. Between 2005 and 2007, Martin Helmchen was a soloist on the “BBC New Generation Artists” scheme.