BIO

 

Sophie Heinrich began playing the violin at the age of four and has been on stage ever since. Important teachers during her studies included Prof. Antje Weithaas (HfM "Hanns Eisler" Berlin) and Prof. Thomas Brandis, with whom she completed her postgraduate studies in the soloist class at the Lübeck University of Music with top marks and whose assistant she was until his death.

She received additional musical inspiration from Gidon Kremer, Midori, Reinhard Goebel, Lothar Strauss and the Artemis Quartet.

She is the winner and prizewinner of several international competitions. In 2008 she won the Possehl Music Prize of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck. In 2009 she attracted attention as the best German among the last six violinists in the semi-final of the ARD competition in the Herkulessaal in Munich. She received scholarships from the "Studienstiftung des Dt.Volkes", the "Dt.Stiftung Musikleben" and the "ZEIT-Stiftung" and was an active member of the Yehudi Menuhin association "Live Music Now".

From 2012 to 2019, Sophie Heinrich was first concertmaster of the "Komische Oper Berlin". She has also made regular guest appearances as first concertmaster in orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian State Opera, the Dresden Staatskapelle and the Staatskapelle Berlin. From 2019 to 2023, she was concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the first woman in the history of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra to hold this position. She is now a sought-after guest concertmaster for exclusive, selected projects.

 

As a soloist and chamber musician, she gives concerts and appears at festivals in Germany and abroad. Recordings for 3sat, Takt1 (“Das Heldenleben” with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra), arte, ORF, Deutschlandfunk, MDR, BR, etc. document her solo and chamber music skills as well as her ability as concertmaster.

In the 2022/23 season, she was the selected curator and artist of her own concert series at MuTh, the concert hall of the Vienna Boys' Choir, and made her debut in the narrative role with "Alma's Music Salon". The project "All about Eve", which she conceived with the pianist Maria Radutu, follows on from this by combining her own texts with music.

In 2024, she will make her debut as a soloist with orchestra in Sofia, Skopje, Mantua, Armenia and Korea.

 

Sophie Heinrich is a lecturer for violin and chamber music at the "Stella Vorarlberg Private University College for Music" in Feldkirch and enjoys being involved internationally in master, chamber music and orchestra courses. Encouraging young women in particular to have more courage and self-confidence, also in leadership matters, is a particular concern of hers: since 2022 she has been in Finland at the Academy " Lead! -Developing the Next Generation of Leaders in Classical Music" as a regular international mentor invited by Jukka-Pekka Saraste.

In 2024 she took over the lead for the strings at the "Grafenegg Academy" in Austria.

 

Sophie Heinrich plays on a violin by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona around 1698, “ex Rouse-Boughton” from the collection of the Austrian National Bank; and on a modern violin, made in 2010 by David Bagué from Barcelona.