The violinist was a prolific educator in Berlin and Hamburg
The violinist and pedagogue Uwe-Martin Haiberg has died, aged 81, on 2 February 2026.
Haiberg was on the faculty of the University of the Arts Berlin (HdK Berlin), as well as the Free Academy of Arts Hamburg.
Born on 10 June 1944, Haiberg began his musical training as a child, studying music at school before taking on violin as his principal instrument.
He held concertmaster positions in Göttingen and with the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg. Additionally, he was the founder and first violinist of the Brahms Quartet Hamburg.
As a prolific educator, he worked as a university lecturer in Hamburg and a professor at the Lübeck Academy of Music. He accepted an appointment at HdK Berlin in 1991, retiring in 2012. Among his students were artists such as Elisabeth Kufferath, Elisabeth Glass, Christian Tetzlaff, Heime Müller of the Artemis Quartet and Wolfram Brandel.
In an interview with The Strad in 2002, Christian Tetzlaff spoke of his time studying with Haiberg in Lübeck: ’You could print it on a T-shirt: I studied with Uwe-Martin Haiberg… and survived!
’Mr Haiberg was the first teacher to really push me. His lessons were often gruelling, expectations were very high and his friendship was overpowering,’ said Tetzlaff.
’Lessons with Haiberg were very good for me, and we shared a lot of fun times, cooking and eating together too,’
The HdK Berlin said of Haiberg in a statement: ’He was deeply involved with the faculty, extending his commitment far beyond his teaching duties. He instilled in his students a combination of rigorous technique, refined style and aesthetics of violin playing, and a deep devotion to chamber music and orchestral literature.
’Always curious and inquisitive, Uwe-Martin Haiberg was a role model for all and, with his profound understanding of musicology, a remarkable successor to the Joseph Joachim tradition of the comprehensive musician.
’We all gratefully acknowledge the greatness of his character and his classically rigorous, conservative teaching…we colleagues were enriched and blessed by his passion for the art and language of music.’
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