Masterclass Violin

Following the recordings of Albert Dietrich’s Violin Concerto on cpo and Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Viola Concerto on Wergo, Elisabeth Kufferath’s first solo CD ‘Libero, fragile’ with violin and viola works by Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, György Kurtág and Jan Müller-Wieland was released on the GENUIN classics label in 2017. This recording was nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award and was enthusiastically received by the press: ’…it is astonishing how the music is played here with many colours and even more nuances between free and fragile, heavenly and earthy delicacy. Kufferath’s playing always seems to radiate an almost Janus-faced mixture of lightness and deep seriousness.’ (Manuel Brug, die Welt).
Her second solo album ‘Two’ with solo works by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Thorsten Encke, Johannes X. Schachtner and Peter Eötvös was released by CAvi-music and was nominated for the Opus Klassik. klassik.com wrote: ‘Elisabeth Kufferath proves herself to be one of the most important violin interpreters of our time with this tour de force.’

New music plays a major role for Elisabeth Kufferath. She played the world premiere of the viola version of Peter Eötvös’ “Adventures of the Dominant Seventh Chord” and the German premiere of “A Call”.
She premièred the work ‘Himmelfahrt’ for viola sola by Jan Müller-Wieland, which was dedicated to her, at the Feldkirch Festival and played the German première of Elliott Carter’s Figment IV for viola in Freiburg.
Thorsten Encke dedicated his violin solo piece ‘Outline’ to her and Johannes X. Schachtner wrote ‘Patheia’ for viola solo for her.
Geoffrey Gordon wrote the violin solo ‘Exposure’ for her.
Moritz Eggert is currently composing the violin viola concerto ‘Promethea’ for Elisabeth Kufferath.
Her inspiring encounter with György Kurtág resulted in the revised version of ‘Für Eberhard Feltz 80’, which she premièred in Hitzacker. She has also worked with Jörg Widmann, Zeynep Gedizlioglu, Helen Grime, Libby Larsen, Georges Lentz, Manfred Trojahn and Jeffrey Mumford.

Heinz Holliger considers Elisabeth Kufferath ‘…undoubtedly one of the most important and interesting personalities of her generation of string players’. The violinist and violist with a wide-ranging stylistic palette is a sought-after chamber musician and versatile soloist.

She has performed as a soloist with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Oriol, Kammerakademie Potsdam and the World Youth Symphony Orchestra, among others, and has worked with conductors Heinz Holliger, Christoph Poppen, Gerard Schwarz and Bramwell Tovey.
In the 2022/2023 season, she performed Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Graal Théâtre’ with the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Cohen.
With the Austin Symphony Orchestra and Peter Bay, she gave the US premiere of Albert Dietrich’s Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 30 and played Luciano Berio’s ‘Corale’ with the Ensemble musica assoluta Hannover.

Elisabeth Kufferath has performed at the Berliner Festwochen, the Lucerne Festival, the Schwetzinger Festspiele, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Helsinki Festival and the Norwegian festivals in Trondheim and Rosendal. She is a regular guest at the ‘Spannungen’ festival in Heimbach.
She has performed as a chamber music partner of Lars Vogt, Isabelle van Keulen, Kirill Gerstein, Tabea Zimmermann, Sarah Maria Sun and Tamara Stefanovich.
In the 2015/2016 season, she was ‘Artist in Residence’ at Auckland University in New Zealand, where she gave numerous recitals and masterclasses.

Elisabeth Kufferath lives with her family in Hanover, where she is a professor of violin at the University of Music, Theatre and Media.
She plays a violin and a viola made by the German violin maker Stefan-Peter Greiner.