Benjamin Schmid, Violin, CV
Version 2025
-Bold: shortened version-
"one of the Top Ten live-CDs ever recorded"
Fono Forum 10/2023 about Benjamin Schmid / Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa
Since his debut at the Salzburg Festival as solo partner of Sir Yehudi Menuhin in 1986, Benjamin Schmid has developed into one of the most important violinists of our time with his worldwide, always intensive concert activity in around 3000 live concerts.
Winning the Carl Flesch Competition in London in 1992, where he was also awarded the Mozart Prize, the Beethoven Prize and the Audience Prize, brought the Vienna-born violinist Benjamin Schmid his international breakthrough, along with other competition prizes.
Since then, he has performed on the world's most important stages with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandthaus Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.
His brilliant technique, the clarity and passion of his expression, his charisma as a soloist, the extraordinary range of his repertoire - in addition to all the usual works, he also plays the violin concertos by Wolf Ferrari, Gulda, Korngold, Elgar, Weill, Dutilleux and Weinberg - and his improvisational skills in jazz make him a violinist with a unique profile.
The violin works of W. A. Mozart are a focus of his repertoire, which has been continuously awarded prizes:Benjamin Schmid is the winner of the Carl Flesch Mozart Prize in London, the EchoKlassik Prize, the Opus Klassik Prize and several times the winner of the Swiss Radio SFR Comparison of Performers, in each case with Mozart. He has published Mozart violin sonatas for Henle Verlag, premiered the reconstructed Fantasia in C minor for violin and piano with Robert Levin, co-edited Leopold Mozart's "New Violin School" and received the Paumgartner Medal from the Mozarteum Foundation.
In 2023, Benjamin Schmid was presenting Mozart's violin concertos nos. 3-5 on CD; and also with his partner orchestra Musica Vitae Sweden 3 jazz violin concertos by the composers Sabina Hank, Herbert Berger and Friedrich Gulda. („This CD is a Triumph from first to last “)
His live recording of the Beethoven Concerto with the Vienna Academie Orchestra, which plays on historical instruments, also received hymn reviews. (“Intoxicating Beeethoven”)
The 2024/25 CD releases include Paganini's chamber music with guitar, Kodaly Duo with Andreas Brantelid and a Fritz Kreisler CD for his 150th anniversary, in which Benjamin Schmid also presents a modern violin concerto by Georg Breinschmid.
Some of Benjamin Schmid's more than 60 CDs have been awarded the Opus Klassik Prize (several times), the German Record Prize (as the only violinist in the classical and jazz categories), the Echo Klassik Prize, Grammophone Editor's Choice or the Strad Selection. In addition to recordings of the standard repertoire of violin concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Bruch, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski and Brahms, his award-winning new discoveries of the violin concertos by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Ermanno Wolf Ferrari, Mieczyslaw Weinberg,
György Ligeti, Nicolo Paganini - Kreisler and Max Reger.
On the occasion of his 50th birthday, OehmsClassics released "Benjamin Schmid Complete OehmsClassics Recordings" (20 CD box).
Benjamin Schmid also attaches exceptional importance to his new recording of Georg Breinschmid's String Quartet (2022). In 2023, Georg Breinschmid's "Concerto for Beni Schmid" will be launched with his "own" orchestra Musica Vitae.
Other highlights of the current season include guest appearances in Madrid, RTVE Orchestra (Szymanowski Concerto), Salzburg Festival Hall (Paganini Concerto), Bregenz Festival with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (Bacewicz Concerto), Musikverein Vienna (Beethoven Concerto), a tour of Japan, Prokofiev concert in Singapore and Brahms concert in the USA, Schumann concert with the Beethoven Philharmonic Orchestra, various programs and tours with the Swedish chamber orchestra Musica Vitae, orchestra tours with jazz trio,
two Kronberg Festival appearances with the HR Bigband, Mozartfest Würzburg, Trasimeno Music Festival, Diabelli Sommer Mattsee and guest appearances with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.
Benjamin Schmid has appeared several times with the Vienna Philharmonic in TV concerts broadcast worldwide: with Seiji Ozawa at the Salzburg Festival or with Valery Gergiev at the Schönbrunn Summer Night Concert; both have been released on CD and DVD by Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft and OehmsClassics.
Several documentary films about Benjamin Schmid, which have been broadcast worldwide, complete the violinist's extraordinary reputation.
In Salzburg, Austria, where he lives with his wife, the pianist Ariane Haering, and their four children, Benjamin Schmid devotes himself as a professor and mentor to his students at the Mozarteum University, where he was awarded the "International Prize for Art and Culture". He also gives masterclasses worldwide, was a professor at the Bern University of the Arts/CH and chairs the jury of the International Mozart Competition Salzburg and the Leopold Mozart Competition Augsburg.
As someone for whom music education for all age groups is becoming increasingly important, Benjamin Schmid has been intensively involved in the artistic design of various institutions for many years: until 2023 he led the ClassixKempten festival, which was acclaimed by critics and audiences, as well as the high-profile Swedish chamber orchestra Musica Vitae, with which he implements a program characterized by classical and jazz influences and at the same time CD premiere recordings of new works written for Benjamin Schmid, as well as as artistic director of the Salzburg Orchestra Soloists (SAOS), which focuses on music from the 20th century.
In 2024, Benjamin Schmid was entrusted with the artistic direction of the largest concert ring in his hometown of Salzburg, the Salzburg Cultural Association, which plays around 50 mostly symphonic concerts in Salzburg's festival halls throughout the year.
Benjamin Schmid is portrayed as one of the most important violinists in the book "The Great Violinists of the 20th Century" by Jean-Michel Molkou (published by Buchet-Chastel, 2014).
He performs on the "ex Viotti 1718" Stradivarius violin made available to him by the Austrian National Bank and on a modern violin made by Wiltrud Fauler in 2015.
