Lena Neudauer

The German violinist Lena Neudauer was a child prodigy in a country where musicians usually follow a more traditional training path. She has gone on to a successful career as an adult and is also a noted educator. Neudauer was born in Munich in 1984, and took up the violin at age three. By ten she had played a concert with an orchestra, and she enrolled at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, in the school's junior program, the following year. Her 12th year also saw her perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concertos with members of the Munich Philharmonic, not only in Germany but also on tour in Japan. Soon she was winning prizes: first prize in the International Violin Competition Leopold Mozart in 1999, and the Pro Europa European Culture Prize of the European Cultural Foundation the following year. She continued to study with Thomas Zehetmair as she entered the Mozarteum's adult program, also working with Christoph Poppen. Neudauer also took master classes with Midori Goto and Seiji Ozawa, among others. She has worked with major orchestras in Germany and elsewhere, including the Nuremberg Symphony, the MDR Symphony, and the Symphony Orchestra of India. As a chamber musician, she has devoted herself often to contemporary music, working with both Pierre Boulez's prestigious Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik in Austria. A familiar presence at German and Austrian festivals, she has appeared at the Mozartwoche Salzburg, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, among others. In 2010, at just 26 years old, Neudauer joined the faculty of the Hochschule für Musik Saar in Saarbrücken, Germany; she moved to the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich in 2016. Neudauer's recordings include complete cycles of the Schumann and Mozart works for violin and orchestra, released by the Hänssler label; the latter cycle was recorded with conductor Bruno Weil and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern. In 2018, Neudauer's recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, with the Südwestdeutsche Kammerorchester Pforzheim appeared on the CPO label. ~ James Manheim