Julia Fischer facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Julia Fischer
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Fischer in 2006
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| Born | 15 June 1983 |
| Education | Munich University of Music and Performing Arts with Ana Chumachenco |
| Occupation | Violinist pianist violin professor |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Awards | Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists Junior category 1st Prize 1995 Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2007 Artist of the year |
Julia Fischer (born 15 June 1983) is a famous German classical violinist and pianist. She is also a professor who teaches violin at the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts. Julia performs in concerts up to 60 times each year!
Contents
About Julia Fischer
Julia Fischer has a mixed background, with German and Slovak family roots. Her parents met when they were students in Prague. Her mother, Viera Fischer, is a pianist. Her father, Frank-Michael Fischer, is a mathematician. Julia speaks German, English, and French.
How Julia Started Music
Julia began playing the violin just before her fourth birthday. Her first violin teacher was Helge Thelen. A few months later, she also started piano lessons with her mother. Julia once shared that she wanted to play the piano like her mother. But since her older brother already played piano, she decided to try another instrument. She chose the violin and loved it!
Julia's mother believes that learning piano helps musicians understand music better. It teaches them about harmony, music theory, and different styles. Julia agrees with this idea.
Julia's Early Music Training
When Julia was eight, she started serious violin lessons at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg. Her teacher there was Lydia Dubrowskaya. At nine years old, she was accepted into the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts. There, she studied with a very important teacher named Ana Chumachenco.
When she was twelve, Julia played Beethoven's Violin Concerto for the first time. She played it in her mother's hometown in Slovakia. Later, she performed it again in Vienna with the famous musician Yehudi Menuhin. Beethoven was a favorite composer for her mother and brother too.
Music Competitions
Two big competitions helped Julia Fischer start her career as a professional violinist.
Winning the Menuhin Competition
The most important competition Julia won was the 1995 International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition. This event took place in Folkestone and was overseen by Yehudi Menuhin himself.
Julia's amazing performance won her first prize in the junior category. She also won all the special awards, including the Bach prize. This award was for the best solo performance of music by the composer Bach.
A music journalist named Edward Greenfield was very impressed. He said that Julia, at just 12 years old, played with more inspiration than anyone in the older age group.
Eurovision Young Musicians
Julia's teacher in Munich, Ana Chumachenco, helped her stay focused. She made Julia practice difficult pieces by Sarasate. In 1996, Julia won another major competition. This was the Eighth Eurovision Competition for Young Instrumentalists in Lisbon. It was shown on TV in 22 countries!
Julia's Career Journey
Julia started her career early. She went to a regular school, called a Gymnasium, until she was 19. She studied subjects like mathematics and physics, as well as music. She finished school in 2002. Julia has been giving concerts since she was 11. By the age of 23, she was already teaching violin as a professor.
Working with Famous Conductors
Julia has worked with many well-known conductors from around the world. Some of these include Simon Rattle, Lorin Maazel, and Christoph Eschenbach. She has also performed with many top orchestras. These include groups from Germany, the United States, Britain, and Japan.
She has performed in most European countries, the United States, Brazil, and Japan. Her concerts have been shown on TV and radio in many countries.
Lorin Maazel as a Mentor
Lorin Maazel was a chief conductor of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was a mentor to Julia Fischer starting in 1997. A mentor is someone who guides and advises a younger person. Maazel performed with Julia in a concert at least once a year. He first had her play as a soloist with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra at a festival. Then, in March 2000, she played with them in Munich.
Carnegie Hall Debut
The year 2003 was a very important one for Julia's career. She made her first appearance at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This is a very famous concert hall. She played Brahms' Double Concerto and received a standing ovation. This means the audience stood up and clapped for a long time because they loved her performance.
In 2003, Julia also played for the first time with the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. She even learned a new, difficult violin concerto by Bartók in just two weeks!
Later that year, she performed with the New York Philharmonic in New York and Colorado. She played the Sibelius Violin Concerto and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.
Teaching and Festivals
In 2006, Julia became a professor at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. She was the youngest professor in Germany at that time. In 2011, she took over the teaching position of her former teacher, Ana Chumachenco, at the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts.
Julia performed at the 2011 Salzburg Easter Festival with Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2013, she played with the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time.
Playing at the Proms
On July 21, 2014, Julia Fischer played the Dvořák violin concerto at the BBC Proms. The Proms are a series of classical music concerts held in London. Her performance was recorded and received excellent reviews. Critics praised her "splendid account" and "spectacular technique." They also noted her "incredibly subtle and utterly dazzling" encore performance.
The Beethoven Violin Concerto
In the 2018–2019 concert season, Julia Fischer played the Beethoven violin concerto again. She performed it with Michael Tilson Thomas and the London Symphony Orchestra in London.
Awards and Honors
Julia Fischer has won many awards for her musical talents. In 2006, she was chosen as one of 16 "Violinists of the Century." This put her alongside legendary violinists like Jascha Heifetz and Yehudi Menuhin.
In 2007, she was named "Artist of the Year" at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards. She also won the 2024 Rheingau Musik Preis on July 4, 2024.
Julia won five prizes for her violin playing and three prizes for her piano playing at a competition called Jugend musiziert. She won every one of the eight competitions she entered!
In 2006, during celebrations for Mozart's birthday, Julia had a special chance. She played on Mozart's own violin in the room where he was born in Salzburg. She said it was tricky at first because violins were shorter in Mozart's time.
Here are some of her other awards:
- 1995: 1st Prize at the international Yehudi Menuhin competition, plus a special prize for "Best Bach Solo-work."
- 1996: Winner of the 8th Eurovision Competition for Young Instrumentalists.
- 1997: Prix d'Espoir from the Foundation of European Industry.
- 2005: ECHO Klassik Award for her CD Russian Violin Concertos.
- 2005: Winner of the Beethoven Ring.
- 2006: "BBC Music Magazine Awards 2006 Best Newcomer" for her Bach CD.
- 2007: The Classic FM Gramophone Awards Artist of the Year.
- 2007: ECHO Klassik Award for her CD Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.
- 2009: MIDEM Classical Award as "Instrumentalist of 2008."
- 2023: Solo violinist at the 2023 Nobel Prize Concert.
- 2024: Rheingau Musik Preis.
Playing Both Violin and Piano
Julia Fischer is special because she is a talented soloist on both the violin and the piano. She can play both parts of sonatas, which are pieces for a solo instrument and piano.
Her musical training started this way at age four. Learning both parts helps her understand the music's harmony and style better.
She did stop practicing piano for a few months in 1995. This was when she was getting ready for the Menuhin Competition, which she won.
On January 1, 2008, Julia made her first public performance as a pianist. She played Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor. This was with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie in Frankfurt. In the same concert, she also played the Violin Concerto No. 3 by Camille Saint-Saëns on the violin.
Julia's Thoughts on Performing
Julia Fischer once shared her thoughts on having a music career. She said that it should always be about the music itself, not just about becoming famous. She believes that if a young musician focuses only on a career, it might not last long.
She truly believes that if someone wants to spend their life with music, they will find a way. This could be as a soloist, an orchestra member, a teacher, or something else. What matters most, she says, is choosing music because you believe the world needs it. She feels that without music, people's emotional lives would suffer. Everything else, she says, comes with hard work and dedication.
In 2006, Julia mentioned that the Beethoven violin concerto is probably her favorite. Her mother taught Julia and her brother piano simply because they loved classical music.
A critic from the Guardian newspaper wrote in 2010 about Julia playing Bach. They said that even though she was in her mid-20s, she had been playing Bach for almost 20 years. They described her playing as having "breathtaking precision."
Playing Chamber Music
In 2011, Julia Fischer started her own group called the Fischer Quartet. A quartet is a group of four musicians. The other members are Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin), Nils Mönkemeyer (viola), and Benjamin Nyffenegger (cello). The quartet went on tour in early 2018.
Julia also plays chamber music with other musicians. These partners include Daniel Müller-Schott (cello) and pianists like Milana Chernyavska and Igor Levit.
What Julia Plays (Repertoire)
Julia's "repertoire" means all the different pieces of music she knows and performs. The composers she has spent the most time with are Beethoven, Bach, Dvořák, Schubert, and Brahms.
Her active repertoire includes music from Bach to Penderecki, and from Vivaldi to Shostakovich. She knows over 40 works with an orchestra and about 60 chamber music pieces. She is especially known for playing Bach's music. She won the Bach prize at the 1995 Menuhin competition for it. She also won an award in 2006 for her CD of Bach's solo violin pieces.
Julia's Instruments
Julia Fischer currently plays a Guadagnini violin made in 1742. She bought it in May 2004. She also has a violin made by Philipp Augustin in 2011, which she has owned since 2012.
Before these, for four years, she used a Stradivarius violin called the 1716 Booth Stradivarius. This violin was on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. It had belonged to another violinist before her.
Julia usually uses a Benoît Rolland bow. Sometimes, for older classical music, she uses a special copy of a Heifetz Tourte bow.
In 2010, Julia explained that she has played on a full-sized violin since she was ten. She said the quality of her instruments improved over time. She played on a Guarneri del Gesù in 1998, then the Stradivarius, and finally bought her own Guadagnini. She bought it with advice from a friend who was a concertmaster.
Music Recordings
In 2004, a music company called Pentatone released Julia Fischer's first CD. It featured Russian violin concertos with conductor Yakov Kreizberg and the Russian National Orchestra. This CD received great reviews. It quickly became one of the top five best-selling classical records in Germany.
Other recordings that received high praise include Bach's solo violin pieces, Mozart's violin concertos, and the Tchaikovsky violin concerto. After five years with Pentatone, Julia signed a contract with another record company, Decca Classics, in 2009.
She has released many successful CDs for both Pentatone and Decca. She also has two DVDs. One is of Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons." The other is from her 2008 New Year's Concert in Frankfurt, where she played both violin and piano.
Julia's Thoughts on Recording
Julia once explained why she chose to record with Pentatone. She had offers from bigger companies but didn't like them as much. She felt that you don't have to record just for the sake of it.
Her conductor, Yakov Kreizberg, connected her with Pentatone. Julia said that Pentatone gave her a lot of freedom. She could choose what music to record and which musicians to work with. These things were very important to her. She records to learn and to improve her playing.
She said that when she recorded the concerto CD, she and Yakov talked a lot about the music. She learned so much from that experience.
Julia signed a three-year contract for seven CDs with Pentatone. What really convinced her to sign was that all the concerto recordings would be conducted by Kreizberg.
Private Life
Julia Fischer is married and has two children. She lives in Gauting, which is a town near her hometown of Munich.
Images for kids
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Fischer in 2006
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Fischer receiving the Rheingau Musik Preis in 2024
See also
In Spanish: Julia Fischer para niños
