Violinist Franziska Hölscher is one of the most versatile young musicians on today’s international music scene. As a soloist, chamber musician, and festival director, she has been invited and often returns to perform at distinguished venues including the Philharmonie and the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the Rudolfinum in Prague. She makes appearances at the Ansbach Bach Festival, the Schleswig- Holstein Music Festival, at the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, the Kissinger Sommer, the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Rheingau Music Festival, and the Heidelberger Frühling Festival.

Musical collaborations with outstanding colleagues always formed an integral part of her podium repertoire since the onset of her career. She counts Kit Armstrong, Martin Helmchen, Severin von Eckardstein, Nils Mönkemeyer, Maximilian Hornung, and Andreas Ottensamer among her chamber music partners. Hölscher also shared an intensive artistic collaboration with renowned German author Roger Willemsen, with whom she conceived the stage recital entitled Landschaften (Landscapes), featuring interrelations between text and music.

Conceiving her recital programmes from start to finish as a dramatic arc, Hölscher combines Baroque, Classical and Romantic pieces with the music of our times. At the 2018 Movimentos Festival in Wolfsburg she performed the world premiere of an early work by Wolfgang Rihm, the Concertino for Violin and Strings.
Born in Heidelberg, Franziska Hölscher was trained as a violinist by Ulf Hoelscher, Thomas Brandis, Nora Chastain, and Reinhard Goebel. In her youth she had already garnered a series of prizes at international competitions.

As an ambassador of the Rhapsody in School project initiated by Lars Vogt, Franziska Hölscher is especially committed to this outreach program offering young people the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with concert artists with concert artists. Franziska Hölscher is Artistic Director of the Klangbrücken chamber music recital series at the Konzerthaus Berlin. In 2018 she was also named Artistic Director of Mettlach Chamber Music Festival.
www.franziskahoelscher.com

Severin von Eckardstein, one of the leading German pianists of his generation, has an already lengthy record of solo concerts and concerto performances on major stages around the world.

He gave highly acclaimed concerts for example in Berlin, Munich, Milan, Moscow, Madrid, London, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, Budapest, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul, as well as at great music festivals, including Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Aldeburgh / UK, the Gilmore Festival in Michigan / USA, La Roque d’Anthéron / France, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Husum Festival (“Raritäten der Klaviermusik”) and the Miami International Piano Festival.
He has performed with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Philippe Herreweghe, Lothar Zagrosek and Marek Janowski, and made important debuts, among others with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Paavo Järvi, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jaap van Zweden and the Hungarian National Philharmony together with Zsolt Hamar. During the worldwide lockdown in November 2020 he debuted with Mariinsky Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev and the Ural Philhamonic in Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Von Eckardstein played 8 recitals during the prestigious series “Meesterpianisten” at Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In 2022 he was invited for the 7th time at the Klavier Festival Ruhr, Germany.

The artist won prizes at numerous noteworthy international competitions. In 2003 he has been awarded the first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. In 2002 He received the “European Culture Prize” and the “Echo Classic Prize.”

Von Eckardstein’s education in the musical arts was predominately shaped by his teachers Prof. Barbara Szczepanska, Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and Prof. Klaus Hellwig, University of Arts, Berlin, where he also successfully completed his studies (Konzertexamen). In an additional course of study at the International Piano Academy Lake Como, Italy, he profited from further instruction and inspiration. He has been teaching masterclasses at many places, among others in South Korea, Finland, Belgium and at the University of Arts Berlin.

Chamber music also plays a significant role in his repertoire with performances at festivals such as the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Finland, Delft Chamber Music Festival, Netherlands, and the Risør Chamber Music Festival, Norway, where he appeared with cellist Heinrich Schiff. His current partners are Isang Enders, Sophia Jaffé, Isabelle van Keulen, Igor Levit, to name only a few. In 2015 he founded the chamber concert series “Klangbrücken” at Konzerthaus Berlin together with violinist Franziska Hölscher.

Von Eckardstein‘s comprehensive repertoire spans the baroque period up through music of the 21st century. As such, he has premiered several works of contemporary composers, in particular the American Sidney Corbett. One of his special focuses is late romantic piano music of less known composers, especially Nicolai Medtner.
CD recordings with compositions by Medtner, Scriabin, Wagner, Schubert, Schumann, Debussy and others are highly regarded. His album of Dupont´s cycle “La maison dans les dunes” was awarded with “Diapason d´Or”. His album featuring Schumann´s Kreisleriana and Adolf Jensen was released in March 2023.