Violinists Anna Agafia and Samuel Hirsch join the Swiss school’s teaching staff
The Conservatoire de Lausanne has announced that violinists Anna Agafia and Samuel Hirsch will join its faculty as violin professors. They will succeed François Gottraux, who will retire in summer 2026.
Danish–Ukrainian violinist Anna Agafia is a graduate of the Lausanne Haute École de Musique, the city’s tertiary-level music school, where she studied under Svetlana Makarova. She later became artist in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Chapel and studied with Pavel Vernikov.
She is a laureate of several major international competitions, including first prize at the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition, second prize at the Singapore International Violin Competition and third prize at both the Carl Nielsen International Music Competition and Stuttgart’s Guadagnini Stiftung.
As a soloist, she has played with leading orchestras including the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Odense Symphony Orchestra, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.
As a chamber musician, she has collaborated with Renaud Capuçon, Emmanuel Pahud, Gérard Caussé, Corina Belcea, Steven Isserlis, Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff and more.
She plays on the 1730–33 ’The Sphinx’ Guarneri del Gesù violin, loaned to her by an anonymous donor.
Swiss violinist Samuel Hirsch is an alum of both the Conservatoire de Lausanne and the Haute École de Musique, where he studied under Renaud Capuçon. He later studied at the International Menuhin Music Academy and at the Bern Academy of the Arts with Corina Belcea.
As both a chamber musician and soloist, he has performed in major European venues including Geneva’s Victoria Hall, Berlin’s Philharmonie, the Rosey Concert Hall and the Salle Cortot in Paris, as well as numerous festivals such as the Zermatt Music Festival, Lavaux Classic and Pablo Casals Festival. He has collaborated with artists such as Corina Belcea, Andrey Baranov, Christian Chamorel, Damien Bachmann and Gilles Apap.
Hirsch is a laureate of the Arthur Grumiaux International Violin Competition and won the Jeunesse de la Ville de Lausanne prize. He is also the founder and director of the Les Concerts de la Thièle festival in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, and formed the Quatuor Arola in Bern.
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