Seiler will succeed current artistic director, cellist Ira Givol, from 2025
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Violinist Midori Seiler will be the new artistic director of the zamus: early music festival from 2025, which annually takes place in Cologne every May.
The Cologne-based artist, who works as a professor of baroque violin at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen will take on the artistic programming of the festival as part of a three-year rotation from 2025 to 2027.
Seiler will succeed cellist Ira Givol, who has been in his current role at zamus: early music festival since 2020 and will present his last festival edition from 21 to 29 May 2024 in Cologne.
’What a pleasure – I will be part of the team of the coolest and most unusual festival!,’ commented Seiler. ’Thank you very much for allowing me to take over the artistic direction of the zamus: early music festival in the coming years. I’m looking forward to many exciting concerts with wonderful musicians!’
Bavarian-Japanese violinist Seiler grew up in Salzburg and studied music in her hometown, Basel, London and Berlin. She studied with Helmut Zehetmair, Sandòr Végh, Adelina Oprean, David Takeno and Eberhard Feltz as well as early music specialists Stephan Mai and Thomas Hengelbrock.
Seiler was a long-time member and a concertmaster of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin during the ensemble’s international breakthrough from 1992 to 2014. She was the concertmaster of Anima Eterna Brugge between 2001 and 2014.
Her discography includes the violin concertos by Mozart and Haydn, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sheherezade, her own reconstruction of the lost violin concerto by Bach BWV 1052, as well as the complete sonatas for Piano and Violin by Beethoven. A CD of chamber music of Schubert with Jos van Immerseel including the ’Trout’ Quintet was released in 2015. She won the Opus Klassik for her recording ’La Venezia di Anna Maria’ with works from Vivaldi, together with Concerto Köln, in 2019.
As a teacher, she served as professor for baroque violin and viola at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar from 2010 to 2013, returning in 2017. Seiler was appointed professor for baroque violin and viola at the University Mozarteum Salzburg in October 2014. She led the Schwetzinger Court Music Academy with cellist Jaap ter Linden from 2013 to 2016 and has given masterclasses in Brugge, Antwerp, Weimar, Verona, Innsbruck, Zürich and Stuttgart.
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