About
“Isabelle Faust is a fearless leader in the realms of the violin. On gut strings, she plays the six monstruous solos by J.S. Bach, Györgi Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments, continues to play Beethoven’s violin concerto again and again with a variety of conductors, plays chamber music. Always the sound of her violin floats with a smile through the music, always she triumphs with ease in the most turbulent and demanding violin turmoil."
— Reinhard Brembeck, Süddeutsche Zeitung (28.04.23)
Isabelle Faust captivates her audience with her compelling interpretations. She approaches each piece with the utmost respect and sensitivity towards its musical historical context and the historic use of instruments. By combining greatest possible authenticity with a contemporary perspective, she continuously manages to create meaningful encounters with a wide variety of works for a diverse audience.
After winning the renowned Leopold Mozart Competition and the Paganini Competition at a very young age, she soon gave regular performances with the world’s major orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonics, Boston Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Les Siècles and the Baroque Orchestra Freiburg.
This led to close and sustained collaborations with conductors like Andris Nelsons, Giovanni Antonini, François-Xavier Roth, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Jakub Hrusa, Klaus Mäkelä, Robin Ticciati oder Sir Simon Rattle, with whom she will be on tour again in March 2024.
Isabelle Faust’s vast artistic curiosity includes all eras and forms of instrumental cooperation. Thus, she never considers music as an end in itself but rather advances the piece’s essence in a devoted, subtle and conscientious way. In addition to big symphonic violin concertos this includes for instance Schubert’s octet with historical instruments as well as Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat with Dominique Horwitz or Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments with Anna Prohaska. With great commitment she renders an outstanding service to the performance of contemporary music: Recent world premieres include works by Péter Eötvös, Brett Dean, Ondřej Adámek and Rune Glerup.
Highlights in the 2023/24 season includes the celebration of György Ligeti’s 100th birthday with an extensive tour with Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth, in which Ligeti’s work enters into a close dialogue with Mozart’s timeless œuvre. Isabelle Faust additionally looks forward to collaborating with orchestras like the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Nacional de España, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, NHK Symphony Orchestra, as well as a tour with the London Symphony Orchestra. She is furthermore “Artist in Residence“ with the SWR Symphony Orchestra.
Her focus in chamber music will be on projects with Antoine Tamestit, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Anne Katharina Schreiber, Kristin von der Goltz, Alexander Melnikov, and Jean-Guihen Queyras.
Numerous recordings have been unanimously praised by critics and awarded the Diapason d’or, the Grammophone Award, the Choc de l’année and other prizes. The most recent recordings include Strawinsky’s Violin Concerto with Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth, Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto under the baton of Daniel Harding and with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Alexander Melnikov, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburger Barockorchester. Isabelle Faust presented further popular recordings among others of the Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo by Johann Sebastian Bach as well as violin concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven and Alban Berg under the direction of Claudio Abbado. She shares a long-standing chamber music partnership with the pianist Alexander Melnikov. Among others, joint recordings with sonatas for piano and violin by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms have been released.