Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay

The musician born in 1983 received his first violin lessons at the age of 5 and later studied with Jost Witter at ‘Schloss Belvedere’ Music School and the Franz Liszt Academy in Weimar. In 2007, he continued his studies with Nora Chastain at the University of the Arts in Berlin. As a soloist, Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay has won prizes at many well-known international competitions, e.g. the Louis Spohr Violin Competition, the International Henry Marteau Violin Competition and at ‘Jugend Musiziert’. In addition, he has been awarded the ‘Magdeburg Scholarship’ of Magdeburg Theatre and the ‘Chairman Award’ of the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO). As an orchestral musician, too, the young violinist has been able to acquire an extraordinary amount of experience. At the age of 13, he was the youngest member of the ‘Youth Symphony Orchestra of Saxe-Anhalt’ and at 16 he was a founding member of Daniel Barenboim’s ‘West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’. His career as concertmaster already began in 1999. Until 2002, he headed the ‘Schloss Belvedere’ Orchestra in Weimar, from 2003 to 2006 the orchestra of the Franz Liszt Academy and finally the EUYO from 2005 until 2007. Since 2007, Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay has been concertmaster of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. In addition to this work, he is visiting concertmaster with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester in Berlin, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Bamberger Symphoniker and in the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay also performs regularly as a chamber musician, including with partners such as Vladimir Ashkenazy and Yefim Bronfman, with whom he has recently presented CD recordings.