The artistic activities of the versatile musician Carolin Widmann range from major classical concerts to works written especially for her, solo recitals, a wide range of chamber music and performances on historical instruments, which she also conducts from the violin. Carolin Widmann was awarded the Bavarian State Prize for Music in 2017 for her individuality and extraordinary musical ability. Furthermore, she received the International Classical Music Award (in the category "Concert") for her recordings of the violin concertos by Mendelssohn and Schumann with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, which were released by ECM in 2016 and which Carolin Widmann conducted from the violin, and which were highly praised by the specialist press.
Named "Musician of the Year" in the 2013 International Classical Music Awards, Carolin Widmann has worked with the world's leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Gewandhausorchester, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, BBC Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra under the direction of outstanding conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Roger Norrington, Edward Gardner, Sakari Oramo, Vladimir Jurowski, Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding, Christoph von Dohnányi and François-Xavier Roth. She has performed at renowned festivals such as the Berliner Festspiele, Salzburger Festspiele, Lucerne Festival, Festival d' Automne, Ravinia Festival and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In the 2014/15 season Carolin Widmann was Artist in Residence at the Alte Oper Frankfurt including numerous concerts and chamber music evenings, among others with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin as soloist/conductor from the violin (on gut strings). In addition, that season included the world premiere of a new violin concerto written for her by Julian Anderson, which she premiered at the Southbank Centre with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Vladimir Jurowski.
Recent highlights include Carolin Widmann's debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Maxim Emelyanychev and her New York debut conducting the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, as well as her return to the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Musikverein and the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne.
Highlights of Carolin Widmann's 2021/22 season include engagements with the Munich Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin with Robin Ticciati, as well as a tour of Italy with Dénes Varjon. She will return to Paris for performances with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Insula Orchestra and travel to Moscow with the Russian National Youth Orchestra. Carolin Widmann also performs two world premieres this season - a new Haas concerto with the Basel Chamber Orchestra at the Beethovenfest Bonn and a new string concerto with the Munich Chamber Orchestra.
A prolific chamber musician, Carolin Widmann performs regularly in major concert halls such as Wigmore Hall in London, Bozar in Brussels, Louvre in Paris, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Philharmonie in Berlin and Vienna Konzerthaus. In 2018/19 she undertook a major recital tour to North and South America and gave an all-Beethoven programme at the Vienna Konzerthaus as part of the Beethoven celebrations. She recently gave the world premiere of Jörg Widmann's Violin Concerto No. 2 at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and performed the work in Europe with the Orchestre de Paris and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding and with the hr-Sinfonieorchester at the Alte Oper under Andrés Orozco Estrada. Her recordings of sonatas by Schubert and Schumann caused a sensation at home and abroad and were awarded, among others, the Diapason d'Or and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. In 2006 Carolin Widmann's debut CD 'Reflections' won the Annual Prize of the German Record Critics. Her CD with Morton Feldman's violin concerto 'Violin and Orchestra' with the hr-Symphonieorchester under Emilio Pomárico was released in 2013.
Carolin Widmann is particularly interested in collaborations with other arts: she performed with the Sasha Waltz Company (as part of the Mozart Week Salzburg and during the opening week of the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg), played a solo concert in a Frankfurt football stadium as part of a project curated by Daniel Libeskind and developed a concert programme for museums such as the Museum Ludwig in Cologne or the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main. In March 2019, Carolin Widmann participated in a project by performance artist Marina Abramović.
Carolin Widmann was born in Munich and studied with Igor Ozim in Cologne, Michèle Auclair in Boston and David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Since 2006 she has been professor of violin at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig. Carolin Widmann plays a violin by G. B. Guadagnini from 1782 on loan from a foundation.