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Mathilde Milwidsky, violin

Mathilde“The audience burst into spontaneous and repeated applause after the first movement, which the soloist had crowned with a brilliantly played cadenza….And where could you hear a larghetto played as divinely beautifully as by Milwidsky?”

- Süddeutsche Zeitung, Oct 2019 (Beethoven Violin Concerto with Dachau Sinfonietta)

 Born in London in 1994, British violinist Mathilde Milwidsky, a 2023 Classic FM Rising Star: 30 under 30, has been praised by The Strad (2017) for her "perfect intonation and beautiful shaping and colouring, comprehensively nailing each new stylistic and emotional universe as she went" as well as by the Ostfriesen Zeitung (2018) – “Milwidsky showed in the interplay with the pianist Thomas Hoppe a unique, rarely heard musical experience... that was sensational.” She has performed as a soloist at venues in the UK such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, St John's Smith Square, Cadogan Hall and the Royal Albert Hall as well as across Europe in Finland, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Ireland and Sweden.
She has been featured on Scala Radio as ‘One to Watch’, broadcast live as a soloist on BBC Radio 3 ‘In Tune’, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Radio Swiss Classic, DR (Danish Radio), Yle Radio Suomi (Finnish National Radio), Classic FM, Times Radio and Hessischer Rundfunk.

Mathilde’s debut CD for Toccata Classics with pianist Sam Haywood, comprising the world premiere of the three Sonatas for Violin and Piano by  Agnes Zimmermann, was released in 2020 and has received widespread acclaim, including Mathilde being named Classical Music Magazine’s Artist of the Month and glowing reviews - “London-born violinist Mathilde Milwidsky is simply terrific, her tone, technique, and temperament the ideal mix and balance for these works. Five stars: I’d give it 10 if I could. This is one of those once-in-a-decade or more discoveries.” (Fanfare Magazine, US).  Her latest release, of both Beethoven Romances for Violin and Orchestra, alongside the National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Rimma Sushanskaya, was released worldwide on the Guild label, and was subsequently given a 5* review by Musical Opinion.

Mathilde was the sole British violinist to be selected for the 2019 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in Brussels and recently won 3rd Prize at the Windsor Festival International String Competition 2019. In 2020 she was a major prizewinner at the Peter Pirazzi Stiftung Competition (Frankfurt) and became a scholarship-holder of Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben (Hamburg). At the inaugural Aurora Music Competition 2018 (Sweden) the jury, chaired by Gordan Nikolic, unanimously awarded her First Prize, alongside the Audience Prize. Mathilde is a semi-finalist laureate of the 2018 International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition Hanover and won the String Section of the 2017 Royal Overseas League Music Competition. She became a St John's Smith Square Young Artist for the 2017/18 season, for which she gave the world premiere of a piece written for her by the acclaimed composer Sally Beamish.

She is regularly invited to festivals such as Verbier, Lerici, Fanø, IMS Prussia Cove, East Neuk, Fraenkische Musiktage, Musikdorf Ernen, Presteigne and Three Choirs, collaborating with musicians such as Anthony Marwood, Avi Avital, Ettore Causa, Adrian Brendel, Huw Watkins, Rosanne Philippens  and Ksenija Sidorova, as well as woodwind principals of the Philharmonia and die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. In 2021 and 2022 Mathilde attended the Verbier Festival Academy on the Soloist & Chamber Music Programme as one of eight violinists selected worldwide. She has worked closely with such esteemed composers as Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Joseph Phibbs, Huw Watkins, Sally Beamish and David Matthews and in 2023 will be giving world premieres of works by Charlotte Bray and Deborah Pritchard.

Mathilde's studies began at the Royal College of Music Junior Department where she was a Tsukanov Scholar taught by Viktoria Grigoreva and David Takeno. She was then offered a place at Trinity College, Cambridge but instead studied at the Royal Academy of Music as a full scholarship student under György Pauk, graduating in July 2017 with First Class Honours and the Regency Award for notable achievement, the Louise Child Memorial Prize for highest-achieving graduate and the Marjorie Heyward Fund for the highest violin mark of the year. She is currently studying under Professor Mi-kyung Lee at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. Additional inspiration has come from members of the London Haydn Quartet and masterclasses with, among others, Midori, Leonidas Kavakos, Steven Isserlis, Maxim Vengerov and Augustin Dumay.

Generous scholarships have supported her studies, including awards from the Hattori Foundation, Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, the Philharmonia Orchestra's Martin Musical Scholarship, the Drake Calleja Foundation and the Tillett Trust. Mathilde is an Artist on the Countess of Munster Recital Scheme for 2020-2022. She plays a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin kindly loaned to her through the Beare’s International Violin Society.

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