About
Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical phenomenon: for nearly five decades the virtuoso has now been a fixture in all the world’s major concert halls, making her mark on the classical music scene as a soloist, mentor and visionary. The four-time Grammy® Award winner is equally committed to the performance of traditional composers as to the future of music.
So far she has given world premieres of 32 works – Thomas Adès, Unsuk Chin, Sebastian Currier, Aftab Darvishi, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutoslawski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann, and John Williams have all composed for Anne-Sophie Mutter. She dedicates herself to supporting tomorrow’s musical elite and numerous benefit projects. Since January 2022, she joins the foundation board of the Lucerne Festival. In the autumn of 1997 she founded the “Association of Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation e.V.”, to which the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation was added in 2008. These two charitable institutions provide support for the scholarship recipients, support which is tailored to the fellows’ individual needs. Since 2011, Anne-Sophie Mutter has regularly shared the spotlight on stage with her ensemble of fellows, “Mutter’s Virtuosi”.
Concerts in 2025
2025 - the year before her 50th anniversary on stage at the Lucerne Festival - once again reflects the violinist's musical versatility and her unrivalled standing in the world of classical music with performances in Europe and North America. With two world premieres by Aftab Darvishi and Max Richter, she will once again present her audience with new repertoire.
In April 2025, Mutter will make a guest appearance in the USA, where she and pianist Lambert Orkis will ring in the 37th year of their musical collaboration. The programme includes works by Aftab Darvishi, Mozart, Respighi, Schubert and Clara Schumann: Darvishi's new work Likoo for solo violin - commissioned by the violinist and dedicated to her - will receive its world premiere on 3 April at Carnegie Hall and will be part of the recital programme at subsequent concerts this year. This is Mutter's first world premiere of a work by an Iranian composer. In the coming years, Mutter will include further repertoire from this cultural sphere in her programme.
Mutter will perform Alban Berg's violin concerto "To the Memory of an Angel" - also in April - at two venues, each with different musical partners: in Sofia with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Michel Tabachnik and in Berlin with the Staatskapelle Berlin under the baton of Simone Young.
She will then return to the USA, where she will perform two heavyweights of piano trio literature with pianist Yefim Bronfman and cellist Pablo Ferrández: Beethoven's "Archduke Trio" and Tchaikovsky's masterpiece in A minor, op. 50. Mutter will also perform this repertoire in Europe - in May with pianist Lauma Skride and cellist Lionel Martin, a scholarship holder of her foundation, and again in October with Bronfman and Ferrández.
She will also perform the Brahms Double Concerto with Ferrández - also a scholarship holder of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation - in June: In Monaco with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under the direction of Kazuki Yamada. Ferrández and Mutter recorded this work in 2022, with Manfred Honeck conducting the Czech Philharmonic.
An extensive European tour begins in July with John Williams' Violin Concerto No. 2 and selected film themes. The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will accompany Mutter at numerous open-air concerts as well as in concert halls; the first half of the tour will be conducted by the young South American conductor Lina González-Granado, followed by Vasily Petrenko.
Thomas Adès' Air - Homage to Sibelius, which the composer dedicated to the violinist and which will be heard for the first time in Romania and France, and Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 1 in B-flat major K207 will be performed by Mutter in September: Cristian Macelaru will conduct the Orchestre National de France in Bucharest and Paris.
Mutter will present her other world premieres in 2025 at the “Homage to Johann Strauss” on October 25 at the Vienna Musikverein - with a work by Max Richter for violin and orchestra, an arrangement of a Strauss composition, and another work.
At the benefit concert for the Mendelssohn House in November, Mutter plays with Elena Bashkirova and once again Pablo Ferrández - with music by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Fanny Hensel, Clara, and Robert Schumann.
Mutter concludes her concert year 2025 in Copenhagen and Aarhus with Beethoven's Violin Concerto - with Fabio Luisi conducting the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.
Awards
In February 2025, Anne-Sophie Mutter was honoured with the Grand Staufer Medal in Gold by Baden-Württemberg's Minister President Winfried Kretschmann. In 2023, the violinist received the Ruhr Piano Festival Prize, and the Royal Philharmonic Society awarded her its Gold Medal. The Krzysztof Penderecki Music Academy in Cracow bestowed an honorary doctorate on her in March 2022. In 2019, Anne-Sophie Mutter was honoured to receive the Praemium Imperiale in the music category; in June she received the Polar Music Prize. Poland awarded the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for Cultural Achievements to Anne-Sophie Mutter in 2018, making her the first German artist to receive such an honour. In February 2018 the violinist was named an honorary member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Romania awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in the rank of a Grand Officer to Anne-Sophie Mutter in 2017; during the same year France honoured her by presenting her with the insignia of a Commander of the French Order of the Arts and Literature. In 2016, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports awarded her the “Medalla de oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes” (Gold Medal for Merits in the Fine Arts). In 2015 Anne-Sophie Mutter was named an Honorary Fellow of Keble College at the University of Oxford. In 2013 she became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, after winning the medal of the Lutosławski Society (Warsaw) in January. In 2012 the Atlantic Council bestowed the Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award upon her. In 2011 she received the Brahms Prize as well as the Erich Fromm Prize and the Gustav Adolf Prize for her social activism. In 2010 the Technical-Scientific University of Norway in Trondheim bestowed an honorary doctorate upon her; in 2009 she won the European St. Ulrich Award as well as the Cristobal Gabarron Award. In 2008 Anne-Sophie Mutter was the recipient of the International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize as well as the Leipzig Mendelssohn Prize.
The violinist has been awarded the German Grand Order of Merit, the French Medal of the Legion of Honour, the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, and numerous other honours.