Frank Peter Zimmermann, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Hannu Lintu
Biography Frank Peter Zimmermann, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra & Hannu Lintu
Frank Peter Zimmermann
is widely regarded as one of the foremost violinists of his generation. Praised for his selfless musicality, his brilliance and keen intelligence he has been performing with all major orchestras in the world for well over three decades, collaborating on these occasions with the world's most renowned conductors. His many concert engagements take him to all important concert venues and international music festivals in Europe, the United States, Japan, South America and Australia.
During the 2017/18 season Frank Peter Zimmermann will be “artist-in-residence” of the NDR -Elbphilharmonie Orchester. Further highlights include concerts with his Trio Zimmermann in Paris, Dresden, Berlin and Madrid and at the summer festivals of Salzburg, Edinburgh and Schleswig-Holstein; concerts in Amsterdam and on tour in Seoul and Japan with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Daniele Gatti; a short tour in Europe and a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Mariss Jansons; concerts with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and Bernard Haitink; a European tour with the Berliner Barock Solisten; with conductor Daniel Harding he will perform with both the Orchestre de Paris and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra; and a week of concerts in China with the Shanghai and Ghuangzhou symphony orchestras and the China Philharmonic Orchestra (opening of the Beijing Music Festival), all conducted by Long Yu.
Highlights during 2016/17 included engagements with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Jakub Hrůša, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester and Kirill Petrenko, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Juraj Valcuha and Rafael Payare, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Alan Gilbert, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and Alan Gilbert, the Russian-German Music Academy and Valery Gergiev, the Orchestre National de France and Juraj Valcuha, the Berliner Barock-Solisten, the Bamberger Symphoniker and Manfred Honeck and the Wiener Symphoniker and Jakub Hrůša.
Together with viola player Antoine Tamestit and cellist Christian Poltéra he forms the Trio Zimmermann; the string trio performs in all major music centres and festivals in Europe. BIS Records released three award-winning CD recordings of works for string trio by Beethoven (Op. 3, Op. 8 and Op. 9), Mozart (Divertimento KV 563) and Schubert (Trio, D 471).
Mr. Zimmermann has given four world premieres, most recently in 2015 of Magnus Lindberg’s violin concerto no. 2 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Jaap van Zweden with further performances with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, both under Daniel Harding and with the New York Philharmonic and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, both under Alan Gilbert. He also premiered the violin concerto “en sourdine” by Matthias Pintscher with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Peter Eötvös (2003), the violin concerto “The Lost Art of Letter Writing” by Brett Dean, who received the 2009 Grawemeyer Award for this composition, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by the composer (2007) and the violin concerto no. 3 “Juggler in Paradise” by Augusta Read Thomas with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Andrey Boreyko (2009).
He received a number of special prizes and honours, among which the “Premio del Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena” (1990), the “Rheinischer Kulturpreis” (1994), the “Musikpreis” of the city of Duisburg (2002), the “Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (2008) and the “Paul-Hindemith-Preis der Stadt Hanau” (2010).
Over the years Frank Peter Zimmermann has built up an impressive discography for EMI Classics, Sony Classical, BIS, Ondine, Teldec Classics and ECM Records. He has recorded virtually all major concerto repertoire, ranging from Bach to Ligeti, as well as recital repertoire. Many of these recordings have received prestigious awards and prizes worldwide.
His most recent CD with the two violin concertos of Shostakovich, performed with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester and Alan Gilbert was released on BIS in 2016. In 2015 and 2016 hänssler Classic released 2 CDs with his new recording of the 5 violin concertos and Sinfonia Concertante of Mozart with the Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Antoine Tamestit. In 2014 his second recording of the Dvořák violin concerto was released by Decca as part of the complete symphonies and concertos with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and Jiří Bělohlávek. And in 2013 BIS released his highly praised recording of the Hindemith violin concerto (1939), which he performs with the hr-Sinfonieorchester under Paavo Järvi, and of four sonatas by the same composer (three of which together with pianist Enrico Pace), as well as a recording of the violin concerto "The Lost Art of Letter Writing" by Brett Dean, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jonathan Nott.
Born in 1965 in Duisburg, Germany, Mr. Zimmermann started playing the violin when he was 5 years old, giving his first concert with orchestra at the age of 10. He studied with Valery Gradov, Saschko Gawriloff and Herman Krebbers.
Mr. Zimmermann plays on the 1711 Antonio Stradivari violin "Lady Inchiquin”, which is kindly provided by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, "Kunst im Landesbesitz".
