Sophie Heinrich
Sophie Heinrich began playing the violin at the age of four and has been performing on stage ever since. Important teachers during her studies included Prof. Antje Weithaas (HfM "Hanns Eisler" Berlin) and Prof. Thomas Brandis, with whom she completed her postgraduate studies in his soloist class at the University of Music Lübeck with top marks and whose assistant she was until his death.
She received additional musical inspiration from Gidon Kremer, Midori, Reinhard Goebel, Isabelle van Keulen and the Artemis Quartet, among others.
She is a winner and prize-winner of several international competitions. In 2008, she won the Possehl Music Prize of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck. In 2009, she attracted attention as the best German among the last six violinists in the semi-finals of the ARD competition at the Herkulessaal in Munich.
She received scholarships from the "Studienstiftung des Dt.Volkes", the "Dt.Stiftung Musikleben" as well as the "ZEIT- Stiftung", and was an active member of the Yehudi Menuhin association "Live Music Now".
From 2012 to 2019, Sophie Heinrich was First Concertmaster of the "Komische Oper Berlin". She also made regular guest appearances as First Concertmaster in orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian State Opera, the Dresden Staatskapelle and the Staatskapelle Berlin. Since 2019, she has been concertmaster of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
As a soloist and chamber musician, she performs actively and makes guest appearances at festivals, at home, and abroad. Recordings for 3sat, Takt1 ("Das Heldenleben" with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra), arte, ORF, Deutschlandfunk, MDR, BR etc. document her soloistic, chamber music skills, and those as concertmaster. Since 2022 she is a selected artist of the MuTh concert series in the concert hall of the Vienna Boys Choir.
Sophie Heinrich is professor of violin at the Landeskonservatorium in Feldkirch and enjoys taking part in master classes, chamber music courses, and orchestra courses internationally. Encouraging young women to have more courage and self-confidence, also in leadership positions, is a special concern of hers: in 2022 she will be in Finland for the first time at the Academy "Lead! -Developing the Next Generation of Leaders in Classical Music" as an international mentor invited by world famous conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste.
In 2021 she founded with a delicate group of musicians the ensemble "Tango 5" : an experimental ensemble with great passion for Astor Piazzolla's "Tango Nuevo" and other great music, also sometimes outside of classical music and conventional concert formats.
Sophie Heinrich plays on a violin by Antonio Stradivari, Cremona around 1698, "ex Rouse-Boughton" from the collection of the Austrian National Bank; and on a new violin by
David Bagué i Soler , fecit in Barcelona 2010.