Biography Benjamin Schmid

“Performances with more interest per bar than most can manage for an entire sonata. It’s terrific Bach playing: challenging, provocative and profoundly musical.” – Gramophone, July 2000

In June 2007 at Vienna Musikverein Benjamin Schmid performed the Korngold violin concerto in three concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic and Seiji Ozawa. This invitation by one of the world’s finest orchestras followed Benjamin Shighly successful debut with Vienna Philharmonic at the 2004 Salzburg Festival, a festival where he has been a frequent guest for over twenty years. Schmid’s regular appearanSalzburg Festival began in 1986 with his debut with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Sir Yehudi Menuhin,has continued with a large number of orchestral concerts, recitals, chamber music and jazz recitals – most recently in recital with Hélène Grimaud and Clemens Hagen.

Born in Vienna in 1968, Benjamin Schmid studied in Salzburg, Vienna and at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He won a number of international awards, amongst the Carl Flesch Competition where he won the Mozart Prize, the Beethoven Prize and the Audience Prize!

Benjamin Schmid’s repertoire is extremely broad. He regularly performs all the major works for violin and orchestra, with works by Austrian composers – Berg, Goldmark, Korngold, Kreisler, Mozart, Muthspiel, Schönberg, Webern – at the very core. Each year Schmid allocates a proportion of his time to playing chamber music. With pianist Ariane Haering he concentrates on the works by Mozart, which they have started to record together. Schmid’s passion for jazz, which began at very early age, is also reflected throughout his schedule.

Current highlights include engagements with leading orchestras such as Concertgebouw Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Gulbenkian Orchestra and the Philharmonia. In the 2007/08 season Benjamin Schmid will return to the City of London Sinfonia, Ulster Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Basel Symphony Orchestra and Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra to mention just a few. Invitations will bring him to the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Filarmonica de Gran Canaria; with Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra to Marbella Festival; as artist in residence to the Rheinische Philharmonie State Orchestra; and with his jazz trio to Taiwan. A highlight will be performances of the Berg concerto with Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly at Leipzig Gewandhaus, as well as on tour to Japan in February 2008.

In addition, Benjamin Schmid works on a number of chamber music recital projects, with amongst others clarinettist Sabine Meyer and cellist Clemens Hagen. His outstandingly successful jazz project ‘Hommage à Grappelli’ has been performed at prestigious jazz clubs as well as many classical concert halls. In the 2007/08 season, chamber music projects lead him to Heidelberg Spring Festival, Ostertöne Festival at Hamburg Laeiszhalle, to Belfast Festival, De Singel Antwerp and Vienna Musikverein.

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