Christoph Koncz (born September 3, 1987, in

Konstanz Konstanz ( , , , ), traditionally known as Constance in English, is a college town, university city with approximately 83,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the Baden-Württemberg state of south Germany. The city ho ...

) is an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n- Hungarian

conductor Conductor or conduction may refer to: Biology and medicine * Bone conduction, the conduction of sound to the inner ear * Conduction aphasia, a language disorder Mathematics * Conductor (ring theory) * Conductor of an abelian variety * Cond ...

, performing internationally with orchestras such as the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

Orchestre de Paris The Orchestre de Paris () is a French orchestra based in Paris. The orchestra currently performs most of its concerts at the Philharmonie de Paris. History In 1967, following the dissolution of the Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du ...

Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden The Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden (), or Saxon State Orchestra Dresden, is one of the oldest orchestras in the world, created by order of Maurice, Elector of Saxony in 1548. Under communist East Germany and until 1992 it was called Staatskap ...

, Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper,

Mahler Chamber Orchestra The Mahler Chamber Orchestra is a professional touring chamber orchestra founded by Claudio Abbado and former members of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in 1997. The MCO appears throughout the year in about 60–70 concerts and performances. It ...

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra () is a Swedish radio orchestra based in Stockholm, affiliated with Sveriges Radio (Sweden's Radio). Its principal performing venue is the Berwaldhallen (Berwald Hall). The orchestra broadcasts concerts on th ...

, Philharmonia Orchestra London,

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (OSR) is a Swiss symphony orchestra, based in Geneva at the Victoria Hall. In addition to symphony concerts, the OSR performs as the opera orchestra in productions at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. History ...

, hr‑Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt,

Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin The Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) is a German broadcast orchestra based in Berlin. The orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families ...

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) is a British orchestra based in Birmingham, England. It is the resident orchestra at Symphony Hall, Birmingham in Birmingham, which has been its principal performance venue since 1991. Its adminis ...

, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal and Hong Kong Philharmonic. He has started his tenure as Music Director of the Orchestre symphonique de Mulhouse in September 2023 and is currently in his sixth season as Chief Conductor of the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein. He has also enjoyed a close relationship with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and the renowned French period instrument ensemble ''

Les Musiciens du Louvre Les Musiciens du Louvre (literally ''The Musicians of the Louvre'') is a French Historically informed performance, period instrument ensemble, formed in 1982. Originally based in Paris, since 1996 it has been based in the Couvent des Minimes de Gre ...

''. Originally active as a violinist, Christoph Koncz was appointed principal second violin of the

Vienna Philharmonic Vienna Philharmonic (VPO; ) is an orchestra that was founded in 1842 and is considered to be one of the finest in the world. The Vienna Philharmonic is based at the Musikverein in Vienna, Austria. Its members are selected from the orchestra of ...

aged twenty in 2008, a position he has held until August 2023. At the age of just nine, he received worldwide acclaim for starring as

child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...

Kaspar Weiss in the

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature), also called a theatrical film, is a film (Film, motion picture, "movie" or simply “picture”) with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole present ...

The Red Violin ''The Red Violin'' () is a 1998 anthology Drama (film and television), drama film directed by François Girard and starring Samuel L. Jackson, Carlo Cecchi and Sylvia Chang. It spans four centuries and five countries telling the story of a myster ...

'', which won the 1999 Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Biography

Born in 1987 in Konstanz into an Austrian-Hungarian family of musicians, Christoph Koncz received his first violin lesson at the age of four and entered the Vienna University of Music only two years later, studying with Eugenia Polatschek. He went on to study violin with Josef Hell,

Igor Ozim Igor Ozim (9 May 1931 – 23 March 2024) was a Slovenian classical violinist and Pedagogy, pedagogue. He was based in Salzburg, Austria. Life and career Igor Ozim was born in 1931 in Ljubljana. He came from a musical family: both parents played ...

and

Boris Kuschnir Boris Kuschnir (born 1948) is a Soviet Austrian violinist Background and early life Born in Kiev in 1948, he studied violin with at the Moscow Conservatoire and chamber music with Valentin Berlinsky of the Borodin Quartet. Career His many encou ...

at the Music Universities of Vienna,

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

and

Graz Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...

as well as conducting with Mark Stringer in Vienna. Master classes with

Daniel Barenboim Daniel Moses Barenboim (; born 15 November 1942) is an Argentines, Argentine-Israeli classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin, who also has Spain, Spanish and State of Palestine, Palestinian citizenship. From 1992 until January 2023, Bare ...

Daniel Harding Daniel John Harding (born 31 August 1975) is a British conductor and airplane pilot. Biography Harding was born in Oxford. He studied trumpet at Chetham's School of Music and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra at age 13. At age 17, ...

and

David Zinman David Zinman (born July 9, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York) is a retired American conductor and violinist. Education After violin studies at Oberlin Conservatory, Zinman studied theory and composition at the University of Minnesota, earning his M.A. ...

further enriched his musical education. Christoph Koncz made his

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

n debut as a soloist aged twelve with the

Montreal Symphony Orchestra The Montreal Symphony Orchestra () is a Canadian symphony orchestra based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The orchestra’s home is the Montreal Symphony House at Place des Arts. History Several orchestras were precursor ensembles to the curren ...

conducted by

Charles Dutoit Charles Édouard Dutoit is a Swiss conductor. He is the principal guest conductor for the Saint Petersburg Philharmonia. In 2017, he became the 103rd recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal Award. Dutoit held previous positions ...

, leading to collaborations with conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner,

Dmitry Sitkovetsky Dmitry Yulianovich Sitkovetsky (; born September 27, 1954) is a Soviet and American violinist, conductor, and arranger. Early life Dmitry Sitkovetsky was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, to violinist Julian Sitkovetsky and pianist Bella Davidovich. ...

Gábor Takács-Nagy Gábor Takács-Nagy (born 17 April 1956''International Who's Who in Classical Music'' (25th edition). Routledge (London), p. 807 (2009) (). in Budapest) is a Hungarian violinist and conductor. He began violin studies at age 8. He attended the Franz ...

and

Marc Minkowski Marc Minkowski (born 4 October 1962) is a French conductor of classical music, especially known for his interpretations of French Baroque works. Minkowski was musical director of Mozartwoche in Salzburg, Austria, from 2013 to 2017 and was gene ...

. Further engagements have taken him to numerous countries across

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

and to the

Middle East The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

as well as North and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. Much in demand as a chamber musician, Christoph Koncz's musical partners include Leonidas Kavakos,

Joshua Bell Joshua David Bell (born December 9, 1967) is an American violinist and conductor. He is currently music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Early life and education Bell was born in Bloomington, Indiana, one of four children of ...

, Vilde Frang,

Renaud Capuçon Renaud Capuçon (born 27 January 1976) is a French classical violinist. Since late 2016 he has been teaching at the Royal Northern College of Music. He is the older brother of cellist Gautier Capuçon. Biography Capuçon was born in Chamb� ...

, Antoine Tamestit,

Kim Kashkashian Kim Kashkashian (born August 31, 1952) is an American violist. She has spent her career in the U.S. and Europe and collaborated with many major contemporary composers. In 2013 she won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. She i ...

Gautier Capuçon Gautier Capuçon (born 3 September 1981) is a French cellist. He is the younger brother of violinist Renaud Capuçon. Biography Gautier Capuçon was born in Chambéry, Savoie, the youngest of three siblings. His brother is the violinist Rena ...

, Nicolas Altstaedt and

Rudolf Buchbinder Rudolf Buchbinder (born 1 December 1946, Litoměřice, Czechoslovakia) is an Austrian classical pianist. Biography Buchbinder studied with Bruno Seidlhofer at the Vienna Academy of Music. In 1965, he made a tour of North and South Americas. In ...

. He also performs frequently with his brother Stephan Koncz, a sought-after cellist and member of the

Berlin Philharmonic The Berlin Philharmonic () is a German orchestra based in Berlin. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world. Throughout the 20th century, the orchestra was led by conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler (1922� ...

. They are both recipients of the '' European Music Prize for Youth''. Christoph Koncz is particularly noted for his interpretations of the works by

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition and proficiency from an early age ...

. His recording of the Complete Violin Concertos as soloist and conductor with Les Musiciens du Louvre was released by

Sony Classical Sony Classical is an American record label founded in 1924 as Columbia Masterworks Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. In 1980, the Columbia Masterworks label was renamed as CBS Masterworks Records. The CBS Records Group was acquired ...

in 2020 under the title ''Mozart's Violin'' and caused an international sensation for being the first recording of these famous works on the composer's original Baroque violin.

The Strad ''The Strad'' is a UK-based monthly classical music magazine about string instrumentsprincipally the violin, viola, cello, and double bassfor amateur and professional musicians. Founded in 1889, the magazine provides information, photographs and ...

magazine described Koncz's performance as ‘a masterly demonstration of melodic playing’. Between 2018 and 2024, Christoph Koncz performed on the "Brüstlein"

Stradivarius A Stradivarius is one of the string instruments, such as violins, violas, cellos, and guitars, crafted by members of the Stradivari family, particularly Antonio Stradivari (Latin: Antonius Stradivarius), in Cremona, Italy, during the late 17th ...

of 1707 on generous loan by the National Bank of Austria. His conducting debut at the 2013 Salzburg Mozartwoche was followed by concerts at such prestigious venues as the

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

and

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Philharmonie,

Vienna Musikverein The ( or ; ), commonly shortened to , is a concert hall in Vienna, Austria, which is located in the Innere Stadt district. The building opened in 1870 and is the home of the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. The acoustics of the building's 'Great ...

and Konzerthaus, KKL Lucerne and Concertgebouw Amsterdam as well as at the

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival () is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer, for five weeks starting in late July, in Salzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart's operas are a focus of ...

. During the 2024/25 season, Christoph Koncz will appear for the first time with the Wiener Symphoniker,

Israel Philharmonic Orchestra The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ''ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit ha-Yisra'elit'') is a major Israeli symphony orchestra based in Tel Aviv. Its principal concert ...

, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Utah Symphony Orchestra and return to the

, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. He will also conduct performance series of ''

Don Giovanni ''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; full title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legen ...

'' at the National Theatre Prague and ''

Die Zauberflöte ''The Magic Flute'' (, ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. It is a ''Singspiel'', a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue. The work premiered on ...

'' at the Opera North Leeds as well as a new production of '' La traviata'' at the

Opéra national du Rhin The Opéra national du Rhin is an opera company which performs in Alsace, eastern France. It includes the Opéras in Strasbourg, in Mulhouse, where the Ballet de l'Opéra national du Rhin, also known as the Ballet Du Rhin, is based, and in Colmar, ...

. He will conduct the première of

Christopher Wheeldon Christopher Peter Wheeldon (born 22 March 1973) is an English international choreographer of contemporary ballet. Early life Born in Yeovil, Somerset, to an engineer and a physical therapist, Wheeldon began training to be a ballet dancer at th ...

's narrative ballett ''

The Winter's Tale ''The Winter's Tale'' is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some criti ...

'' with music by

Joby Talbot Joby Talbot (born 25 August 1971) is a British composer. He has written for a wide variety of purposes, with a broad range of styles, including instrumental and vocal concert music, film and television scores, pop arrangements and works for dan ...

at the

Wiener Staatsoper The Vienna State Opera (, ) is a historic opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria. The 1,709-seat Renaissance Revival venue was the first major building on the Vienna Ring Road. It was built from 1861 to 1869 following plans by ...

Discography

* 2020: ''Mozart's Violin – The Complete Violin Concertos'',

References

External links

Christoph Koncz – Official siteChristoph Koncz on FacebookChristoph Koncz on TwitterChristoph Koncz on InstagramHarrisonParrott artist profileBeethoven: Symphony No. 1
performed by Christoph Koncz and the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra in November 2016 {{DEFAULTSORT:Koncz, Christoph 1987 births Living people Austrian male musicians Austrian conductors (music) Austrian violinists Hungarian classical violinists Male classical violinists 21st-century Hungarian male musicians 21st-century classical violinists