Nadja Zwiener • historical performance practice

BIOGRAPHY

The repertoire of violinist Nadja Zwiener, who was born in Erfurt and trained in Berlin (Hanns Eisler Academy of Music) and London (Guildhall School of Music and Drama), ranges from Baroque to Romanticism, with rare but welcome forays into contemporary music. Her studies were supported by the German National Academic Foundation and the DAAD; her violin playing has been described by the press as “breathtakingly virtuosic” and “beguiling.” Her own focus on stage is on direct communication—an exchange that moves both the performer and the audience emotionally, intellectually, and physically.

She played in numerous British early music ensembles before also working as concertmaster with French period instrument ensembles from 2005 onwards, including Harry Bicket, Simon Rattle, William Christie, John Eliot Gardiner, Emmanuelle Haïm, René Jacobs, and Trevor Pinnock.

Since 2007, she has been concertmaster with The English Concert, with whom she also performs regularly as a soloist and has made numerous radio and CD recordings as well as touring worldwide to major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and many festivals. She has performed violin concertos by Bach, Mozart, Tartini, and Vivaldi at Wigmore Hall in London, the Bach Festival in Leipzig, the Mozart Festival in Bath, the Bach Academy in Bruges, and in the USA, South America, and Asia. She is a regular guest concertmaster with B'Rock.

Chamber music in various ensembles and working with singers are her professional passions, but cross-genre projects are also playing an increasingly important role. These combine early music with dance, literature, visual arts, contemporary music, and even free improvisation. She collaborates intensively with electronic composer Johannes Malfatti (Berlin) and choreographer Emanuele Soavi (Cologne). Her regular chamber music partners in early music include Kristian Bezuidenhout, Francesco Corti, Johannes Lang, Maximilian Erhardt, Joseph Crouch, and Maurice Steger.

Bach's music holds a special place in the heart of the Thuringian, who lives in Leipzig. From 2016 to 2022, she was concertmaster at the International Bach Academy Stuttgart, where she played a key role in the transition from modern to authentic instruments and thus in the establishment of the newly formed Gaechinger Cantorey. 

She plays a baroque violin made by David Tecchler in Rome in 1723. In 2021, her first solo CD, Senza Basso—Auf dem Weg zu Bach (Without Bass—On the Way to Bach), was released by the Leipzig label GENUIN, followed in 2023 by a joint recording with Thomas organist Johannes Lang, 1723 (Ramée). Together they founded the Leipzig early music ensemble Collegium Musicum '23, which will organize its own concert series in Leipzig starting in 2025 and will perform regularly on the baroque instruments of St. Thomas Church. The first CD release, The Art of Fugue on Bach's Original Instruments, was recorded on these instruments and released in June 2025 by Ramée.

Nadja Zwiener is professor of historical violin and viola at the Cologne University of Music and Dance.