Sarah Christian seeks to convey to her listeners the diversity, sincere emotion and energy of classical music. She enjoys drawing together uncompromisingly the manifold elements of her musical life, as soloist, concertmaster of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, chamber musician, and artistic director of a chamber music series in her hometown of Augsburg. Demanding the highest standards of herself, she always prepares scores with her focus firmly on the musical content, which she approaches with the utmost respect.
At the ARD Music Competition 2017, she was awarded the 2nd prize (no 1st prize was given), also winning the Audience Prize and the Munich Chamber Orchestra’s Special Prize. Prior to this, she enjoyed numerous competition successes, including the “Michael Hill” Competition in New Zealand, the International Johannes Brahms Competition in Pörtschach (Austria), the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University Competition in Berlin, and many more. In 2008 she was pronounced “Best String Player of the Year”, and in the same year was awarded the Yehudi Menuhin Medal by the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. Sarah Christian considers her most important teachers to have been Igor Ozim at the Salzburg Mozarteum and Antje Weithaas at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, to whom she was assistant from 2013 to 2016.
Further inspiration came from masterclasses with Thomas Brandis, Donald Weilerstein, Rainer Schmidt, Maxim Vengerov and Miriam Fried. She is delighted to have been the first concertmaster of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since 2013, where she also enjoys directing the orchestra in programmes without conductor. As a regular guest concertmaster in other orchestras, she can be heard with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the DSO Berlin and the Kammerakademie Potsdam. At the 2017 BBC Proms she led the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Rimsky- Korsakov’s “Scheherezade” under the direction of James Gaffigan. Sarah Christian has performed throughout Europe and also in China, Japan, South America and the USA. As a soloist, she has played with Munich’s “Via Nova” choir, Sibiu and Timosoara Philharmonic Orchestras in Romania, the Bavarian Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. She made her début in the Carnegie Hall with the Bavarian State Orchestra in March 2018.
Her début CD (GENUIN, 2017) of Prokofiev’s Sonata no.1 in F minor Op.80 and Schubert’s Fantasy in C major received great critical acclaim: “Sarah Christian’s solo début is simply fantastic! This violinist proves herself to be an artist of exceptional sensitivity, and absolutely unimpeachable technique.” (Manuel Stangorra, klassik.com) Chamber music is equally important to her. She has performed in various ensembles at the Spannungen Festival in Heimbach, the Schwetzingen Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival. In her hometown of Augsburg, she launched a chamber music series, which she runs together with Maximilan Hornung. Her newly-founded “Franz Ensemble” will record rarely heard chamber music for the MDG label. The first album with works by Ferdinand Ries will be released in Summer 2019.
Photo: Marco Borggreve
