Katharina Engelbrecht

Katharina Engelbrecht was born in Vienna in 1987 and studied first at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Marina Sorokowa and then at the Cologne University of Music and Dance with Zakhar Bron, before returning to the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna to complete her postgraduate studies with Anton Sorokow and Johannes Meissl (chamber music).

She has won multiple prizes in national and international competitions such as the Gradus ad Parnassum, the International Fritz Kreisler Violin Competition in Vienna and the Johannes Brahms Competition in Pörtschach.

As a soloist she has performed with orchestras including the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra, the Kaunas Chamber Orchestra and the Youth Orchestra Alpe Adria.

At the age of 18 she made her debut in the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. As the violinist in the Vienna Piano Quartet, founded in 2013 (formerly the Stratos Quartet) she has won several prizes with the ensemble at international competitions. She has performed in concert as a chamber musician at the Vienna Musikverein and the Vienna Konzerthaus, and at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian in Lisbon, the Casa da Música in Porto and the Berlin Konzerthaus.

From 2013 to 2018 Katharina Engelbrecht was a violinist in the stage orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Since March 2018 she has been a member of the first violin section in the orchestra, and in 2021 she was accepted as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.