Anne-Sophie Mutter
violin
Vita
Born in Rheinfelden, Germany, Anne-Sophie Mutter launched her career in 1976, at the age of 13, at the International Music Festival in Lucerne (as Lucerne Festival was then known). Just one year later, she performed in Salzburg with the Berliner Philharmoniker under Herbert von Karajan. She has appeared at all of the major music centers around the world since then. In addition to the classical repertoire, these performances include many new scores. Mutter has premiered 32 compositions, including works by Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, and Jörg Widmann. In 2025, she introduces new repertoire by the Iranian composer Aftab Darvishi and by Max Richter. A notable priority is Mutter’s support of young musical talent. It was for this purpose that in 2008 she founded the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation and Mutter’s Virtuosi, an ensemble of grant-supported young artists, with whom she has recorded an album of works by Bach, Vivaldi, Bologne, Previn, and John Williams (2023). She is currently devoting special attention to the music of John Williams, who composed his Second Violin Concerto for Mutter and also arranged several of his film themes into concert works for violin and orchestra for her. In the spring of 2025, she undertook a concert tour of the USA with her long-standing piano partner Lambert Orkis and performed Berg’s Violin Concerto with ensembles including the Staatskapelle Berlin. Mutter has received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, the Leipzig Mendelssohn Prize, and the Polar Music Prize. She has garnered four Grammy Awards and is the recipient of the Grand Cross of the German Federal Cross of Merit, the French Legion of Honor, the Bavarian Order of Merit, and the Grand Austrian Cross of Honor. In February 2025, Baden-Württemberg’s Minister President Winfried Kretschmann presented her with the Grand Staufer Medal in Gold. Anne-Sophie Mutter has been a member of the Foundation Board of Lucerne Festival since 2022.
Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 23 August 1976 in a program of works by Tartini, Bach, de Falla, Paganini, and de Sarasate.
April 2025
