About this Artist
Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical phenomenon: For 46 years now, the virtuoso has been a fixture in all the world’s major concert halls, making her mark on the classical music scene as a soloist, mentor, and visionary.
The four-time Grammy Award winner is equally committed to the performance of standard repertoire as to the future of music: So far, she has given world premieres of 31 works—Thomas Ades, Unsuk Chin, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutosławski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann, and John Williams have all composed for her. Mutter dedicates herself to supporting tomorrow’s musical elite and numerous benefit projects. Since January 2022, she has served on the foundation board of the Lucerne Festival. In 1997, she founded the “Association of Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation,” to which the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation was added in 2008. These two charitable institutions provide support for the scholarship recipients, tailoring it to the fellows’ individual needs. Since 2011, Mutter has regularly shared the spotlight on stage with her ensemble of fellows, Mutter’s Virtuosi.
Mutter’s concert calendar for 2022 once again reflects her musical versatility and outstanding position in the classical music world: At the Lucerne Festival, she gives the world premiere of Thomas Adès’ Air for violin and orchestra, which she co-commissioned, and also performs Joseph Bologne’s Violin Concerto No. 2. She is performing Anne-Sophie, the violin concerto that André Previn dedicated to her, in several German cities, with the New York Philharmonic led by Jaap van Zweden. Mutter is also performing the Brahms Double Concerto alongside cellist Pablo Ferrández and the Czech Philharmonic led by Manfred Honeck as well as the London Philharmonic Orchestra led by Ed Gardner. She performs Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in the U.S. with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra led by Andrew Davis and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra led by Riccardo Muti, and in Germany with the Pittsburgh Orchestra under Manfred Honeck. Another musical focus in 2022 is on John Williams: In Vienna and the U.S., Mutter performs his Violin Concerto No. 2, of which she is the dedicatee, and a selection of virtuoso film-score adaptations Williams created especially for her. These performances are conducted by the composer.
In response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, Anne-Sophie Mutter has given four benefit concerts for its victims in March and April 2022—and several more are to follow.
Chamber music programs include violin sonatas and Mozart piano trios with Lambert Orkis and the cellists Maximilian Hornung and Lionel Martin. Further recitals with her longstanding piano partner feature works by Beethoven, Franck, and Mozart. On tour with active and former fellows of her foundation, she will perform Beethoven and Haydn string quartets and Jörg Widmann’s Studie über Beethoven, the world premiere of which she gave in Tokyo in 2020.
In March 2022, the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Krakow bestowed an honorary doctorate upon her. In October 2019, Mutter was awarded the Praemium Imperiale in the music category; in June, she received the Polar Music Prize. In February 2018, she was named an Honorary Member of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. In November 2017, France named her a Commander of the French Order of the Arts and Literature. In December 2016, the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sports awarded her the Medalla de oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes. In October 2013, she became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, after winning the medal of the Lutosławski Society (Warsaw) in January. In 2011, she received the Brahms Prize as well as the Erich Fromm Prize and the Gustav Adolf Prize for her social activism. The violinist has also been awarded the German Grand Order of Merit, the French Medal of the Legion of Honor, the Bavarian Order of Merit, and the Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria.