Violinists we love in London
Welcome to some violinists playing in London this year
Antje Weisshaas
German
Monthly Spotify Listeners= 3995
International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition 1988 and International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition in 1991, of which she is artistic director since 2019.
Daniel Lozakovitch
Swedish
One of todays more sought after violinists. He leaves both audiences and critics spell bound . He was invited to perform at the state dinner at the Palace of Versailles on 20 September 2023 during Charles III's state visit to France and he performed with the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France at the reopening ceremony of Notre Dame in 2024
Monthly Spotify Listeners= 820000
Born in Stockholm, he started playing violin aged 7 debuted within 2 years
Studied at the Hochschule fur Musik Karlsruhe under Professor Josel Rissin from 2012 to 2021 and mentored bby Eduard Wulfson in Geneva since 2015
First Prize in 2016 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition and Young Artist of the Year 2017 at the Festival of Nations
Seen playing Prokofiev Violin Concerto no 2 and then as an encore Bach Sonata in D minor Op 27 No 3 Ballade that was a tour de force of violin virtuosity
Ferdinand David
German
In 1835 he became concertmaster (Konzertmeister) at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig working with Mendelssohn. In Leipzig, for about forty years, he was also the first violinist of the Leipzig Quartet.[3] David returned to Dorpat to marry Liphardt's daughter Sophie.[2] In 1843 David became the first professor of violin (Violinlehrer) at the newly founded Leipziger Konservatorium für Musik. , and, with Clara Schumann, played the official premiere of Schumann's first violin sonata in Leipzig in March 1852.
Monthly Spotify Listeners=
David worked closely with Mendelssohn, providing technical advice during the preparation of the latter's Violin Concerto in E minor and was the soloist in the premiere of the work in 1845
Gidon Kremer
Latvian
One of the worlds most recognised violinists he has also written about music and founded the Kremerata Baltica
Monthly Spotify Listeners= 329000
Started the violin aged 4. Both his parents were accomplished violin players. His father was Jewish and had survived the Holocaust
Two years later he began his studies with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory with David Oistrakh who was a violinist, composer, and professor.
Aged 16 Gidon was awarded the First Prize of the Latvian Republic. Gidon Kremer went on to win a series of prestigious awards, including prizes in the 1967 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and 1969 Montreal International Music Competition and first prize in both the 1969 Paganini and 1970 Tchaikovsky International Competitions.
Gidon Kremer has made over 120 albums In 2015 Deutsche Grammophon/. Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica’s recording of Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No 2 was a lnadmark. To mark the 70th birthday of the violinist, Deutsche Grammophon issued 22 CDs of the complete recordings of violin concertos
Hilary Hahn
American
She has played solo Bach pieces every day since she was eight
Monthly Spotify Listeners= 660000
A musically precocious child, Hahn began playing the violin one month before her fourth birthday in the Suzuki Program of Baltimore's Peabody Institute. She studied using the Suzuki method until she was 5
She studiedin Baltimore under Klara Berkovich from 1985 to 1990. On December 21, 1991,[13] at age 12, Hahn made her major orchestral debut with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.[14] Soon thereafter she debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra,[15] Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. In 1996, she debuted at Carnegie Hall in New York City as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, playing Saint-Saens's third violin concerto. Hahn has played with orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra,[25] New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony Orchestra. In 2007 she debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and played in Vatican City as part of the celebrations for Pope Benedict XVI with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Gustavo Dudamel.[26][27] The concert was recorded and released by Deutsche Grammophon.[28]
A three-time Grammy Award winner
Lisa Batiashvili
Georgian now German
Lisa Batiashvili, is a prominent Georgian violinist active across Europe and the United States. A former New York Philharmonic artist-in-residence, she is acclaimed for her "natural elegance, silky sound and the meticulous grace of her articulation". Batiashvili makes frequent appearances at high-profile international events and was the violin soloist at the 2018 Nobel Prize concert. (Wikipaedia)
Monthly Spotify Listeners= 106000
Her father was a violinist,her mother a pianist. She began learning the violin with her father when she was 4.
She was a BBC new generation artist from 1999 to 2001
When she was 16, Batiashvili placed second in the 1995 Sibelius Competition in Helsinki, as the youngest competitor in its history.
Played Sibelius violin concerto at the opening night of the Proms 18th July 2025, where I bumped into William and Jill,Michael and Henrietta as we were sitting in the same row