Julia Fischer, solo violin  - recital canceled

German violinist Julia Fischer is recognized worldwide for possessing a talent of uncommon ability and as an exceptionally gifted performer, 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.

Praised for her imaginative and illuminating interpretations of the classical repertoire, 26-year-old Ms. Fischer is equally lauded for her technical skill, with the Financial Times saying “She may have spitfire technique… but in Fischer’s case the notes are not an end in themselves but purely a means to expressing musical truths.”

In January 2009 Ms. Fischer released a recording of Bach concertos on the Decca label recorded with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Orchestra. Upon its U.S. release the recording became the fastest-selling classical music debut in iTunes history. Ms. Fischer subsequently toured as director and soloist with the Academy orchestra to 11 European cities and 10 North American cities. In its five star review of the recording, BBC Music Magazine described Ms. Fischer as “…an intuitive Bachian. Her phrasing is elegant and she has an unerring feeling for Bach’s broad architectural melodic contours.”

Ms. Fischer recorded Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin in 2005 and will revisit these works on a two-month tour in 2010 encompassing 12 European cities and seven U.S. cities, including two performances at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in March. The recording earned worldwide critical praise including the rare distinction of winning three of France’s most prestigious awards: the Diapason d’Or from Diapason; the CHOC from Le Monde de la Musique; and the highest rating from Classica Repertoire. The Bach recording also saw her awarded the BBC Music Magazine Award as “Best Newcomer” in 2006.

In addition to the Bach tours, Ms. Fischer’s European concert schedule for the 2009-10 season includes tours of Europe with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov, and the Netherland Philharmonic Orchestra and Yakov Kreizberg. Ms. Fischer will be the Artist in Residence with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich performing a chamber music concert in December 2009 and Shostakovich’s first violin concerto at three concerts with Michael Sanderling in June 2010. She will continue as Artist in Residence with the orchestra in 2010-11 in Baden-Baden.

During the 2007-08 season Ms. Fischer, who has continued to play the piano throughout her career, made her professional piano debut at the Alte Oper Frankfurt performing the Grieg Piano Concerto and Saint-Saëns’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in the same concert. This much celebrated concert was taped by Unitel, for whom she is an exclusive audio-video recording artist. A DVD of this concert will be released by Decca in August 2010.

Ms. Fischer’s second recording for Decca of Paganini caprices is scheduled for worldwide release in late 2010.

Previous recordings were released on the PentaTone label. Her debut CD, a recording of Russian Violin Concertos by Khatchaturian, Prokofiev and Glazunov with the Russian National Orchestra under Yakov Kreizberg, won Germany’s coveted ECHO Award in 2005. In 2007, her Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto recording saw her awarded the ECHO award for “Instrumentalist of the Year”.

Born in Munich in 1983 to a pianist mother from Slovakia and a mathematician father from Eastern Germany, Ms. Fischer began learning the piano with her mother at age three, but was soon persuaded to take up the violin as well because, as her brother also played piano, her mother thought it would be nice to have another instrument in the family. She began violin lessons at the Leopold Mozart Conservatoire in Augsburg, and three years later, she became a pupil of the famous Ana Chumachenco at the Munich Academy of Music (Musikhochschule). At just 11 years old, she won the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition, an event that catapulted her toward a career as a soloist.

Ms. Fischer lives in Munich, Germany.