A native of Munich, Carolin Widmann studied with Igor Ozim in Cologne,
Michèle Auclair in Boston and David Takeno in London.

Ms. Widmann has won prizes at several important competitions, including the City of Munich’s Kulturförderpreis, the International Georg Kulenkampff Violin Competition in Cologne (1999) and the International Jeunesses Musicales Competition in Belgrade (2001). In 1998 Yehudi Menuhin presented her with the Prix du President at the Concours International Yehudi Menuhin in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. She has also been awarded the highly respected Belmont Prize by the Forberg-Schneider Foundation in recognition of her dedication to New Music.

Carolin Widmann regularly appears as a guest artist at such widely known festivals as Lucerne, Schleswig-Holstein, Aspen, Banff, Davos and Bath, as well as performing at the Musica Festival Strasbourg, the Berliner Festwochen, the Holland Festival, Las Vegas Music Festival, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival and the Heidelberger Frühling, where in 2007 she was Artistic Director of the Atelier concert series.

She has performed as a soloist with Germany’s major radio symphony orchestras WDR, NDR, SWR, HR and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Bamberger Symphoniker, London Sinfonietta, the Dutch Radio Philharmonic, the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Chamber Ensemble and the Collegium Musicum Copenhagen, collaborating with conductors Yehudi Menuhin, Peter Eötvös, Walter Weller, Jonathan Nott, Christoph Poppen, Peter Rundel, Stefan Asbury, Heinz Holliger and Michael Schønwandt.

In her recitals and concert appearances, Carolin Widmann strives to span a bridge between repertoire from the Viennese Classic and Romantic periods and more recent New Music. While much in demand in performances of music by contemporary composers such as in works written for her by Wolfgang Rihm, Matthias Pintscher, Jörg Widmann and Erkki-Sven Tüür and also working with György Kurtág, Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin and Salvatore Sciarrino, at the same time she feels a sense of obligation and affinity to the traditional violin repertory.

The 2007/2008 season begins with solo recitals at the Alte Oper Frankfurt (in premiere performances of works by Rihm, Pintscher and Tüür) and at the Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele. In addition she will appear in concert with the China Philharmonic Orchestra in Peking, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in Reykjavik, in the premiere performance of a violin concerto by José María Sánchez-Verdú with the Orquesta Ciudad de Granada in Alicante, with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg as well as perform at the Louvre at this year’s Festival D'Automne in Paris.

In collaboration with Salome Kammer and the renowned French stage director Antoine Gindt, Ms. Widmann will prepare a staged version of the Kafka Fragments by György Kurtág which will be premiered in Orleans and then performed at various theaters in France and Switzerland.

In 2008 she will give her debut at the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall (directed by George Benjamin), and also perform as solo violinist for the first time with the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Ilan Volkov), the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (Riccardo Chailly), the Orchestre National de Belgique, the Orchestre National de Lille and the Northern Sinfonia at the Aldeburgh Festival (Thomas Adès).

Carolin Widmann’s debut CD ‘Reflections I’ was named the Critics' Choice for 2006 by the German Record Critics’ Award. Additional productions are being planned on the ECM label.

Carolin Widmann has been a professor for violin on the faculty of the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Musikhochschule in Leipzig since October of 2006.


2007/2008