With a combination of depth, brilliance and humour, Patricia Kopatchinskaja brings an unmatched theatricality to her performances. Whether in a traditional violin concerto or an original staged project, her distinctive approach always reaches the heart of a work. She is a boundary-crosser who enjoys the challenges of musical experiments. She has performed numerous works by living composers, such as Aureliano Cattaneo, Francisco Coll, Luca Francesconi, Stefano Gervasoni, Michael Hersch, Márton Illés, György Kurtág and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
The violinist has worked worldwide with leading orchestras and conductors and appears regularly at festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Ojai Music Festival and the Salzburg Festival.
Since 2024/25 she is artistic partner of the SWR Symphony Orchestra, with whom she has realized numerous projects. She has also been associated artist with the SWR Experimental Studio and artist in residence at the 2025 Klarafestival. Other season highlights have included a USA tour with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, her return to Camerata Bern, and performances with the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and at the Venice Biennale and the Lucerne Festival. To honour Schoenberg’s 150th birthday she included his Violin Concerto and Pierrot lunaire in her programme, and she also performed a new double concerto by Dai Fujikura with Ensemble Resonanz and Claire Chase.
In 2023/24 she was artist in residence at London’s Southbank Centre, the Vienna Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie in Essen and curated the festival Golden Decade.
Her discography comprises more than thirty recordings, among them the Grammy-winning album Death and the Maiden with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Plaisirs illuminés with Sol Gabetta and Camerata Bern (BBC Music Magazine Award), Le monde selon George Antheil with Joonas Ahonen, Maria Mater Meretrix with Anna Prohaska and violin sonatas by Brahms, Janáček and Bartók with Fazıl Say (Gramophone Editor’s Choice). Following her album Take Two, in 2024 she joined forces with Reto Bieri and Polina Leschenko for Take 3.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja is a humanitarian ambassador for terre des hommes and in 2017 was awarded the Swiss Grand Award for Music.
