“One of the most brilliant and inquisitive artists of the new generation.”
New York Times

Equally at home in the classical/romantic repertoire as in contemporary music, Christian Tetzlaff sets standards with his interpretations of the violin concertos of Beethoven, Brahms and Tchaikovsky as well as Berg, Ligeti, Schönberg and Shostakovich. He is particularly well-renowned for his incomparable performances of the Bach Solo Sonatas and Partitas. He performs frequently with his own string quartet and gives regular duo recitals with chamber partners like Leif Ove Andsnes and Lars Vogt.

He began the current season as Artiste Etoile at the Lucerne Festival and this was followed by invitations to the BBC Proms, Edinburgh and Helsinki Festival.

This remainder of the season includes performances of all of Mozart's Violin Concertos with Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in several European musical centres. He will be soloist with the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo under Herbert Blomstedt, the Orchestra St. Cecilia Rome under Antonio Pappano as well as Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Also in the USA, he will be bringing the rarely performed Violin concerto by Joseph Joachim to the Houston Symphony Orchestra under Hans Graf and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Wolfgang Sawallisch.

In Germany Christian Tetzlaff makes appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic and the Radio Symphony Orchestras Munich, Stuttgart and Frankfurt.

Christian Tetzlaff has made a number of recordings for Virgin Classics and EMI: the Dvorak and Lalo Violin Concertos, the Mozart Violin Concertos with Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. His Bach Solo Sonatas and Partitas disc was described by Fono Forum as “setting a new standard for Bach”. Recently, Virgin released his recording of Bartok Sonatas for violin and piano with Leif Ove Andsnes and the Bartok solo sonata. Last year his Sibelius complete works for violin and orchestra with the Danish National Radio Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard received the Diapason d'Or and the three Brahms Violin Sonatas, recorded with Lars Vogt, received the ECHO Klassik prize.

In spring 2006, his recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra (Arte Nova) is released and this will be followed by a new recording of all of Bach's solo Sonatas and Partitas in autumn 2006.

Born in Hamburg in 1966, Christian Tetzlaff studied at the Lübeck Conservatory with Uwe-Martin Haiberg and in Cincinnati with Walter Levin. He now lives near Frankfurt.

Christian Tetzlaff plays a violin by German violinmaker, Peter Greiner.