Benjamin Beck is a prize-winning musician and one of the leading violists of his generation. He serves as principal viola in the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic and is recognized internationally as a versatile musician: a soloist, chamber musician, teacher and arranger.
His work as a soloist and chamber musician has taken him to the leading concert halls of Europe, America and Asia, and also to the Salzburg Festival, the Bayreuth Festival and the Verbier Festival.
As an arranger he is especially noted for his adaptations of large-scale orchestral works and operas for chamber ensemble. These include Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Wagner’s Lohengrin and Stravinsky’s The Firebird. His arrangement of Lohengrin for string sextet received its premiere in 2020 at the Richard Wagner Museum in Bayreuth and was published by Hofmeister Musikverlag.
Prior to his appointment in Vienna, he held principal positions in top European orchestras. He has received numerous awards, starting with first prize in the Curso Internacional de Música de Llanes. In 2015 he released his debut album Les Voix de l’alto; this was followed in 2023 by Love Beyond Death with the pianist Marie Rosa Günter for Genuin Classics.
Alongside his concert activity he is deeply involved with educational and social projects, including for Créations en Cours and ICEP Music Sharing in collaboration with Midori.
Benjamin Beck was born in the French Basque Country and studied at the Paris Conservatoire and the New England Conservatory in Boston with Jean Sulem and Kim Kashkashian. Until 2023 he was a professor at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles.
