Carnegie Hall

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical phenomenon. For 46 years, the virtuoso has been a fixture in all the world’s major concert halls, making her mark on the classical music scene as a soloist, mentor, and visionary. The four-time Grammy Award winner is equally committed to the performance of traditional composers and the future of music: So far, she has given world premieres of 30 works by composers who include Unsuk Chin, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutosławski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sir André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann, and John Williams. She dedicates herself to supporting tomorrow’s musical elite, as well as numerous benefit projects. Since the onset of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, she has played four benefit concerts for its victims.

Ms. Mutter’s concert calendar for 2022 reflects her musical versatility as a violinist and her outstanding position in the classical music world. At the Lucerne Festival, she gives the world premiere of Thomas Adès’s Air for Violin and Orchestra, which she co-commissioned, and Bologne’s Violin Concerto No. 2. She performs André Previn’s “Anne-Sophie” Violin Concerto in several German cities and at the Usedom Music Festival, where she previously appeared at the former turbine hall of the Peenemünde Power Station with the New York Philharmonic and Jaap van Zweden, setting an impressive signal for international understanding even beyond German-American relations. She also performs Brahms’s Double Concerto with cellist Pablo Ferrández with the Czech Philharmonic under Manfred Honeck and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner; Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis and Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti, and in Germany with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck. A musical focus this season is John Williams’s oeuvre: In the US, Ms. Mutter performs his Violin Concerto No. 2, of which she is the dedicatee, and virtuoso adaptations of film scores Williams created especially for her. Conducted by the composer, these performances will appear as part of the John Williams Gala at Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. As a chamber musician, she performs violin sonatas and piano trios by Mozart with pianist Lambert Orkis and cellists Maximilian Hornung and Lionel Martin. Further recitals with her long-standing piano partner will feature additional works by Beethoven and Franck. She also tours the works on this evening’s program, including Jörg Widmann’s Study on Beethoven, of which she gave the world premiere in Tokyo on February 22, 2020.

Ms. Mutter’s awards and honors include an honorary doctorate from the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków (March 2022), the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, Polar Music Prize, Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, French Order of the Legion of Honor, Bavarian Order of Merit, and Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria. Since 2021, she has served as president of German Cancer Aid. 

Ye-Eun Choi—first presented to the public in J. S. Bach’s Double Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter in 2007—has made outstanding debuts with the Orchestre National de France under Riccardo Muti at Maison de la Radio in Paris, and the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert in 2009. In 2013, she was awarded the European Cultural Young Artist Award. 

Ms. Choi has worked with the world’s leading conductors, including Mariss Jansons, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, André Previn, Jiří Bělohlávek, Michael Tilson Thomas, Jaap van Zweden, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Manfred Honeck, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Yuri Bashmet, Neeme Järvi, Kent Nagano, Andrew Manze, Stéphane Denève, Nicholas McGegan, Sergey Neller, Hugh Wolff, and Christian Vásquez. She has collaborated with orchestras such as the San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Munich Symphony Orchestra, Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Ms. Choi regularly shares the stage with Ms. Mutter; in the current and upcoming seasons, they perform chamber music throughout Europe, the US, and Asia with cellists Daniel Müller-Schott, Kian Soltani, and Pablo Ferrández, and violist Vladimir Babeshko. They tour concert halls such as Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Berlin’s Philharmonie, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Palau de la Música Catalana, Carnegie Hall, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Ms. Choi frequently appears at festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Verbier Festival, Rencontres Musicales d’Évian, La Folle Journée, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Moritzburg Festival, and Concordia Festival in Kazan. Her debut CD was released by Deutsche Grammophon, featuring sonatas by Felix Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Prokofiev. 

Born in Seoul, Ms. Choi studied with Ana Chumachenco at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, and has been supported by Ms. Mutter as a fellow of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. She performs on a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini built in Parma around 1765, generously loaned to her by a private collector.

German violist Vladimir Babeshko is one of the most prominent soloists and chamber musicians of his generation. He has performed at the Lockenhaus, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Edinburgh, Verbier, Next Generation, Oberstdorfer Musiksommer, Weilburger Schlosskonzerte, Oranjewoud, Chelsea, and Rio Music Week festivals, collaborating with esteemed colleagues such as Christoph Eschenbach, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Daniel Müller-Schott, Gary Hoffman, Lynn Harrell, Lambert Orkis, Ksenia Bashmet, and the Henschel Quartet. Composer Pierre-Dominique Ponnelle wrote and dedicated a viola concerto for Mr. Babeshko, which received its premiere in Mannheim with the Kurpfälzisches Kammerorchester in 2015. 

This season, Mr. Babeshko joins his longtime mentor Anne-Sophie Mutter in a string quartet for performances throughout Europe, North America, and Asia that feature the world and national premieres of Jörg Widmann’s Study on Beethoven, as well as tours of Europe, North America, Asia, and South America with the Mutter Virtuosi. 

Mr. Babeshko is section leader of the Musikkollegium Winterthur in Switzerland. He plays an 1870 viola by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, generously loaned to him by the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation.

A prize winner at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition and a SONY Classical exclusive recording artist, Pablo Ferrández is a musician of stature. In March 2021, he released his debut album, Reflections, which draws on his musical roots and the unexpected similarities between Russian and Spanish music at the beginning of the 20th century. Highly acclaimed by critics, the album earned him the Opus Klassik Young Artist of the Year award. 

Recent highlights include debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniele Gatti; performances of Brahms’s Double Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter; and appearances with the London Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, and Orchestre National de France. The 2021–2022 season sees debuts with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; and returns with Basel Symphony Orchestra, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini, Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra, and Spanish National Orchestra, among others. He also appears with the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra under Mr. Dudamel, performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto alongside Anne-Sophie Mutter and Daniil Trifonov in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. Mr. Ferrández tours with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in Germany and the Netherlands, and with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra in Scandinavia. He also serves as artist-in-residence of the Valencia Orchestra. As a recitalist and chamber musician, he frequently collaborates with such artists as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Vadim Repin, Martha Argerich, Denis Kozhukhin, Gidon Kremer, Yuja Wang, Nikolay Lugansky, Beatrice Rana, Maxim Rysanov, Ray Chen, Alice Sara Ott, Elena Bashkirova, Luis Del Valle, and Sara Ferrández.

Born in Madrid in 1991 to a family of musicians, Mr. Ferrández enrolled at the prestigious Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía when he was 13 to study with Natalia Shakhovskaya. He later completed his studies at the Kronberg Academy with Frans Helmerson and became a scholar of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. Mr. Ferrández plays the “Lord Aylesford” Stradivarius cello of 1696 thanks to the Nippon Music Foundation.