Submitted by The Washington Center for the Performing Arts
January 31 at 7:30 pm
First Prize Winner of the 2011 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, violist Veit Hertenstein is one of the most exciting musicians on his instrument to emerge in years. He has already garnered recognition for his exciting stage presence and virtuoso artistry. Highlights this season debut include recitals at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society, the Washington Center for the Performing Arts, and the Levine School of Music as well as performances at the Davos Festival in Switzerland, and the Usedom Festival and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany.
Mr. Hertenstein will make his New York debut at Merkin Hall in the Peter Jay Sharp Concert and his Washington, D.C. debut at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater next season presented by the Young Concert Artists Series. He was also awarded YCA’s Slomovic Prize and seven performance prizes. Mr. Hertenstein has participated in the Marlboro Festival, the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad and the Verbier Festival in 2009 and 2010, where he was awarded the “Henri Louis de la Grange” special viola prize. He appeared at Seiji Ozawa’s International Music Academy in Rolle, Switzerland in 2008. As a guest artist, Mr. Hertenstein has appeared with the Trio Wanderer, the Modigliani Quartet, and has performed chamber music and conducted educational outreach with the violinist Midori in Japan in 2010.
In addition to winning a viola concerto commission from Pro Helvetia to be written by Swiss composer Nicolas Bolens, Mr. Hertenstein has won several important competitions. In 2009 he was the first violist ever to win the New Talent Competition of the European Broadcasting Union, founded by Sir Yehudi Menuhin in 1969, which led to radio broadcasts throughout Europe. That same year Mr. Hertenstein was a prize-winner of the first Tokyo International Viola Competition, which led to performance at La Folle Journée festivals in Nantes, France and Tokyo in 2010 and 2011, as well as an appearance at the Viola Space Festival in Tokyo in 2011 where he also conducted master classes. In 2007 he was the first violist to win First Prize at the Orpheus Competition in Zurich, which brought his debut recording on Euro-Classics.
Mr. Hertenstein has performed in master classes for György Kurtag, Krzysztof Penderecki, Gabor Takács-Hagy, Yuri Bashmet, and Kim Kashkashian and in turn has taught master classes at the Shanghai Conservatory.
Born in 1985 in Augsburg, Germany, Mr. Hertenstein began studying the violin and piano at the age of 5 and switched to the viola when he was 15. At the age of 19, he studied with Nicolas Corti, violist of the Amati Quartet at Zurich Hochschule der Künste. In 2009 he earned an artist diploma at the Haut Ecole de Musique in Geneva working with violist Nobuko Imai and with Miguel da Silva, violist of the Ysaye Quartet. He plays a 1701 David Tecchler viola.
Tickets are $16.00 Adults and $5.00 Youth. Please contact the Box Office at 360-753-8586 or www.washingtoncenter.org for ticket sales.
