This year sees the tenth edition of Krzyżowa-Music Festival, of which you are a co-founder and Artistic Director. Where did the idea to hold a music festival in a place like this originate?

Two things came together: Having had a long-time connection with Dr. Matthias von Hülsen, whom I first met as a teenager when he invited me to be part of the „Junge Elite” concert series at Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a major German summer festival of which he is a founder and was executive director. And having participated regularly at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont (USA), which has been formative for me musically and personally.

Through Krzyżowa, these two things all of a sudden came together quite naturally:

The Krzyżowa estate, formerly Kreisau, was once owned by the von Moltke family, and Helmuth James and Freya von Moltke were friends with one of the Marlboro Music Festival’s founders, pianist Rudolf Serkin. And Matthias von Hülsen, is family-related to the Moltke family.

The estate of Krzyżowa, which was destroyed during WWII, has been re-constructed after the reconciliation mass exactly 35 years ago and is now a frequently visited center for meetings and youth exchange programs. So it seemed like an ideal place to host some 50 musicians to spend time exploring chamber music and also to make our participants aware of the history of Kreisau/Krzyżowa.

Workshops constitute an important element of Krzyżowa-Music Festival. Was your underlying intention to merge your artistic accomplishments with educational activity?

The character of Krzyżowa Music is strongly influenced from my experiences at Marlboro Music: I came there as a „junior“ musician and had the opportunity to work on a wide range of chamber music repertoire with wonderful fellow juniors and the chamber music legends of our times. Yet, everybody was open to everybody else‘s musical input- whether old or young- and the study process was at eye-level. There was hardly ever a masterclass atmosphere about it, even though, of course it is clear that for instance an Arnold Steinhardt (ex-primarius of the Guarneri String Quartet) has so much to „teach“ his younger colleagues. At the same time, he would always be equally open to any suggestions from his younger colleagues.

At the time, this was a musical approach I hadn‘t experienced before, and I found it beautiful.

The idea that one‘s musical journey and artistic development is a life-long learning process, and that all generations can always learn from and inspire each other.

As soloist, you have performed with illustrious orchestras led by such conductors, as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Charles Dutoit, Lorin Maazel, Kent Nagano… At the same time, you are very active as chamber musician. What do you find fascinating about performing with a symphony orchestra, and what about playing with a chamber ensemble?

First of all, I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to play both with symphony orchestras and chamber music for the major part of my musical journey. Exploring a composer’s chamber music literature often seems to offer a deeper access into a composer‘s „inner world“. So I feel to get to know a composer better by knowing his or her chamber music repertoire, and this can only help accessing their orchestral repertoire.

Of course, there are concertos where the roles between the soloist and the orchestra are more hierarchically distributed, such as for instance a Mozart or a Paganini Violin Concerto, than say the Brahms or Bartók Violin Concertos, where some solos in the orchestra are just as important as the solo violin part itself.

But in general the approach towards symphonic and chamber music isn’t so different, I find. At least when it comes to the actual music making: It is all about listening and reacting towards other.

From your earliest age, you have also performed with your pianist sister Nicole. Do you come from a musical family?

My parents are both musical and love music, but have never taken it to any professional level. There are both in the medical (care) field.

In the 2024/2025 artistic season you are the Artist-In-Residence of Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra. In the previous, 2023/2024 season, you held a similar post in Bretagne, where you were Artist-In-Residence of Orchestre National de Bretagne. Do you know that Poznań is a twin town to Rennes, and the region of Wielkopolska – a twin region to Bretagne? One could say that Polish and French towns, as well as a Polish and French regions are also bound by the person of a German violinist, an artist-in-residence… And everybody is bound by music…

Wow, I admit that I wasn’t aware of this beautiful connection! We should all plan something together with these two wonderful orchestras!

Interviewer

Anna Plenzler