Isabelle Faust

Isabelle Faust inspires her audiences through first-class performances characterized by profundity and intensity. She approaches each work with respect for and understanding of its musical context and its authentic instrumentation.
Since Isabelle Faust’s youthful experiences as a prizewinner in the International Violin Competition Leopold Mozart, and the Premio Paganini in Genoa, she has appeared regularly with the most prestigious orchestras in the world, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Les Siècles. This has resulted in close and long-lasting collaborations with conductors including Claudio Abbado, Giovanni Antonini, Frans Brüggen, John Eliot Gardiner, Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Klaus Mäkelä, Andris Nelsons, François-Xavier Roth, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Robin Ticciati.
Isabelle Faust’s artistic curiosity encompasses all epochs and musical forms. As well as performances of the great symphonic violin concertos, her career highlights have included interpretations of Schubert’s Octet on original instruments, György Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments with Anna Prohaska and Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat with Dominique Horwitz. In addition, she has long been a notable interpreter of contemporary music. Works she has recently given premieres of include compositions by Peter Eötvös, Brett Dean, Ondřej Adámek and Rune Glerup.
Highlights of the 2022/23 season have included concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the WDR Symphony Orchestra, along with tours with Il Giardino Armonico, the English Baroque Soloists, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées. Chamber music projects have included collaborations with Sol Gabetta, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Antoine Tamestit, Jörg Widmann, Alexander Melnikov and Pierre-Laurent Aimard.
Her numerous recordings have been unanimously acclaimed by critics and won prizes such as the Diapason d’Or, the Gramophone Classical Music Award and the Choc de l’année du Monde de la Musique. She has also released several joint albums with the pianist Alexander Melnikov, with whom she has had a chamber-music partnership for many years. Recent recordings include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Alexander Melnikov, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, and Arnold Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto with Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.