When and where was your first concert with the MCO? 1997 in Landshut!!
Can you tell us something about your instrument? My first violin was the most longed-for Christmas present of my life!
What is the most difficult aspect of your job? There's always something that could be better, always more to discover, you always have to (you get to!) learn more... Sometimes that's hard, but it's also an answer to the next question!
What is the best thing about being a musician? See the previous question. Also, it's the joy of forgetting myself and the world, while at the same time noticing everything with the utmost intensity, that I experience while making music - you could also call it "flying"...
What do you do before a performance? Ideally: take a half-hour nap; in all circumstances: eat well!!
BIOGRAPHY Henja Semmler, born in 1979, is a founding member of both the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA. Her teachers have included Rainer Kussmaul, Thomas Brandis and Gerhard Schulz, and her musical education was supported by grants from the German National Merit Foundation (Studienstiftung), the DAAD and the German Musical Instrument Fund.
She has won prizes at the L. Spohr Competition, the German Music Competition (Deutscher Musikwettbewerb), the Competition of German Conservatories (Wettbewerb der deutschen Musikhochschulen) and at the Franco Gulli International Prize for Young Chamber Ensembles.
As a soloist and in chamber ensembles with such performers as Kolja Blacher, Renaud Capuçon, Tabea Zimmermann, Natalia Gutman and Jörg Widmann, Henja Semmler has appeared at the Berliner Festwochen, the Rheingau Music Festival, Heidelberger Frühling, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, and Young Artists in Concert Davos. She gave her debut at the Berlin Philharmonic at age 17, and has soloed with the Staatskapelle Weimar, the World Youth Orchestra, and the Davos Festival Orchestra.
Henja was a founding member of the Oberon Trio (founded 2006). She is also passionately dedicated to the baroque violin and viola. Her regular collaboration with contemporary composers has led to her participation in many world premieres.
August 2012 13 Aug / Mon 19:30 / Lucerne >> more October 2012 21 Oct / Sun 21:30 / Ferrara >> more April 2013 07 Apr / Sun 21:30 / Ferrara >> more 30 Apr / Tue 19:30 / Bayreuth >> more July 2013 17 Jul / Wed 21:15 / Siena >> more
