Anne-Sophie Mutter

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical phenomenon: for 46 years now the virtuoso has been performing at all the leading music venues worldwide, and has dominated the classical scene as a soloist, mentor and visionary.

The four-time Grammy award-winner is equally committed to the performance of traditional compositions and to nourishing the music of the future. She has given premieres of 31 works: Thomas Adès, Unsuk Chin, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutosławski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann and John Williams have all written pieces for her. In addition, Anne-Sophie Mutter dedicates herself to promoting upcoming musical talent and to numerous charitable projects. In 2021 the Board of Trustees of the German cancer charity Deutsche Krebshilfe elected her as the new president of this not-for-profit organization. Since January 2022 she has also been a member of the Lucerne Festival’s board of trustees. In autumn 1997 she founded the Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation e. V., to which the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation was added in 2008. These two charitable institutions offer support to scholarship holders according to their individual needs. Since 2011 Anne-Sophie Mutter has regularly shared the spotlight on stage with her ensemble of soloists supported by her foundation, Mutter’s Virtuosi.

In March and April 2022 Anne-Sophie Mutter gave four benefit concerts in protest at Russia’s war of aggression with Ukraine, which violates international law – further events will follow. ‘Everyone can and must help now,’ the artist said. ‘Words alone mean nothing. This is a terrible humanitarian catastrophe and we must stand with the people of Ukraine as well as with the refugees.’

Anne-Sophie Mutter’s 2022 concert calendar reveals once again the violinist’s musical versatility and her unparalleled position in the world of classical music. At the Lucerne Festival she most recently gave the world premiere of Air for violin and orchestra by Thomas Adès, which she co-commissioned. In Lucerne she also performed the Violin Concerto No. 2 by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. She toured to several German cities performing André Previn’s violin concerto Anne-Sophie, dedicated to her, including an appearance at the Usedom Music Festival. Here, with the New York Philharmonic and Jaap van Zweden, she demonstrated an impressive new example of German-American international collaboration. In 2022 Anne-Sophie Mutter has also appeared in Brahms’s Double Concerto with cellist Pablo Ferrández, the Czech Philharmonic and Manfred Honeck; in December the two soloists repeat their performance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Ed Gardner. She has recently also performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in the USA with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Davies and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti, and in Germany with the Pittsburgh Orchestra under Manfred Honeck (tour ongoing). John Williams’s music is another focus for Mutter in 2022, with performances in Vienna and the USA of his Violin Concerto No. 2 (dedicated to her) along with a selection of virtuoso film music adaptations that Williams made specially for her, with the composer conducting.

With her long-term piano partner Lambert Orkis Anne-Sophie Mutter gave a solo recital at the 2021 Salzburg Festival, of music by Beethoven, Franck and Mozart. Chamber music engagements in the 2021/22 season have included Mozart’s violin sonatas and piano trios with Lambert Orkis and the cellist Maximilian Hornung. On her forthcoming chamber music tour with current and former scholarship holders from her foundation, she will perform (in different ensemble formations) music including Beethoven’s String Quartet op. 18 No. 2, Haydn’s String Quartet op. 20 No. 1 and Jörg Widmann’s Study on Beethoven, which she premiered in Tokyo in 2020.

In March 2022 the Krzysztof Penderecki Music Academy in Kraków awarded Anne-Sophie Mutter an honorary doctorate. In October 2019 she received the Praemium Imperiale in the music category; in June the same year she was awarded the Polar Music Prize. In March 2018 Anne-Sophie Mutter became the first German artist to receive the Gloria Artis Gold Medal for Cultural Achievements in Poland. In February 2018 she was named an honorary member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Romania awarded her the Order of Cultural Merit in the rank of Grand Officer in 2017; in the same year France made her a Commander of the French Order of the Arts and Literature. In December 2016 the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport awarded her the Medalla de oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes (Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts). In 2015 Anne-Sophie Mutter was named an Honorary Fellow of Keble College at the University of Oxford. In October 2013 she became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in January of the same year she was awarded the medal of the Lutosławski Society (Warsaw). In 2012 the Atlantic Council presented her with the Distinguished Artistic Leadership Award. In 2011 she was awarded the Brahms Prize, and also the Erich Fromm Prize and the Gustav Adolf Prize for her social activism. In 2010 she received an honorary doctorate from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim; in 2009 she was awarded the European St Ulrich Award and the Cristóbal Gabarrón Award. In 2008 Anne-Sophie Mutter received the international Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and the Leipzig Mendelssohn Prize.

The violinist has also been awarded the German Grand Order of Merit, the French Medal of the Legion of Honour, the Bavarian Order of Merit, the Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria and numerous other awards.