Antje Weithaas violin
Boris Kusnezow piano

Brimful of energy, Antje Weithaas’ brings her compelling musical intelligence and technical mastery to every detail of the music. Her charisma and stage presence are captivating, but never overshadow the works themselves. She has a wide-ranging repertoire that includes the great concertos by Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann, new works such as Jörg Widmann’s Violin Concerto, modern classics by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Ligeti and Gubaidulina, and lesser performed concertos by Hartmann and Schoeck.

As a soloist, Antje Weithaas has worked with most of Germany’s leading orchestras, including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Bamberg Symphony and the major German radio orchestras, numerous major international orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra and the BBC Symphony, as well as and the leading orchestras of the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Asia. She has collaborated with the illustrious conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Dmitri Kitayenko, Sir Neville Marriner, Marc Albrecht, Yakov Kreizberg, Sakari Oramo and Carlos Kalmar.

Antje Weithaas kicks off the 2021/22 season with concerts at the Schubertiade and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. In the chamber music realm, she continues a new musical partnership with harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani in concerts at the Schwetzingen Festival and the Heidelberger Frühling. In trio concerts with Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Martin Helmchen, she will appear in Italy as well as in Celle, Bensheim and Budapest. Other highlights include concerts with the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin, the Orchestra of Staatstheater Cottbus, the Jena Philharmonic, the Staatsphilharmonie Nuremberg, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, the Ensemble Resonanz, the Kammerakademie Potsdam as well as with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker in a special concert in March 22. In the current season, she is the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris’s artiste associé.

Through her infectious zest for communication, Antje Weithaas‘ reputation for inspiring play-lead concerts is rapidly growing. Having been the Camerata Bern’s artistic director for almost ten years, she was responsible for the ensemble’s musical profile, leading large works such as Beethoven’s symphonies, and recording music by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Beethoven.

Antje Weithaas produced a reference recording of Beethoven and Berg’s violin concertos in 2013 with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra under Steven Sloane (CAvi-music). The label cpo released her recordings of Max Bruch’s complete works for violin and orchestra with the NDR Radio Philharmonic under Hermann Bäumer to great acclaim. There were rave reviews for Antje Weithaas’ project for CAvi, the complete recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas and Eugène Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas. Two CDs were released in 2019: a recording of the violin concerto by Robert Schumann and the double concerto by Johannes Brahms with the NDR Radiophilharmonie, cellist Maximilian Hornung and conductor Andrew Manze, and a recording of the violin concerto and concert rhapsody by Khachaturian with the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie and conductor Daniel Raiskin.

Antje Weithaas began playing the violin at the age of four and later studied at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin with Professor Werner Scholz. She won the Kreisler Competition in Graz in 1987 and the Bach Competition in Leipzig in 1988, as well as the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hanover in 1991. Together with Oliver Wille, she recently took over the artistic leadership of the renowned Joachim competition. After teaching at the Universität der Künste Berlin, Antje Weithaas became a professor of violin at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in 2004. She plays on a 2001 Peter Greiner violin.

Boris Kusnezow is one of the most sought after collaborative pianists of his generation. He performs with eminent instrumentalists and singers worldwide. His performances have taken him to renowned concert venues such as the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, the Kioi-Hall in Tokyo, the Munich Gasteig and the Berlin Philharmonie.

His artistic activities are documented in 12 CDs and numerous radio recordings. The German press (FAZ, Süddeutsche, Fono Forum, among others) have repeatedly praised him as a chamber musician and several of his CDs have been nominated for prizes, including the Opus Klassik and Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Boris Kusnezow is in demand as an official pianist for some of the world’s most prestigious instrumental and singing competitions, most recently being invited to the ARD Competition in Munich, the Joseph Joachim Competition in Hannover, the Stuttgart International Violin Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.

Boris Kusnezow was born in Moscow and began his musical education at the traditional Gnessin Academy. He has lived in Germany from the age of eight and completed his musical studies in Hannover with Professor Bernd Goetzke. Thereafter followed first place at the German Music Competition, international awards such as Fellowship of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and scholarships from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

In addition to his active performing activities, he is founder of the piano chamber music academy „Chamber Lab“ in Montecastelli/ Italy, organises an international music masterclass in Schloss Bückeburg (IMAS) and volunteers for the Loewe Foundation, where he focuses on the promotion of classical music.

Teaching has become an important element in Kusnezow‘s artistic career. In 2020 he was appointed professor for piano chamber music at the University for Music and Theatre „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy“ Leipzig.