Christine Bernsted
Biography Christine Bernsted
Christine Bernsted
is an internationally acclaimed Danish classical violinist. She graduated from the Postgraduate Soloist class at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna with Professor Elisabeth Kropfitsch after several years of studying the Viennese violin tradition with Boris Kuschnir, and with Professor Eszter Haffner at The Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. Since then, she has made her mark on both the Danish and international music scene with recitals in the Philharmonie Berlin’s Kammermusiksaal, the Royal Albert Hall in London and in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York.
She is also a First Prize winner in several international violin competitions, including the Melbourne International Violin Competition. As triple winner at the Mieczysław Weinberg Violin Competition in Katowice in 2021 (Second Prize and the recipient of two special awards), Bernsted has in recent years focused on the Slavic violin repertoire with composers such as Szymanowski, Lutosławski, Penderecki and Weinberg, as well as the Nordic and Viennese classical violin repertoire. As a young musician, Bernsted is keen to represent contemporary and emerging composers, with works by the Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych being recently released, and Lera Auerbach’s 24 Preludes for violin and piano with pianist Ramez Mhaanna released on Naxos to critical acclaim (Naxos 8.574464).
Bernsted plays a Stefan-Peter Greiner violin, courtesy of the Augustinus Foundation as well as on strings from Larsen Strings, with whom she is a Performing Artist.
Lera Auerbach
A renaissance artist for modern times, Lera Auerbach is a widely recognised conductor, pianist and composer. She is also an award-winning poet and an exhibited visual artist. All of her work is interconnected as part of a cohesive and comprehensive artistic worldview. Auerbach’s exquisitely crafted, emotional and boldly imaginative music has reached global audiences, and as one of today’s most sought-after and exciting creative voices, her music is performed by artists such as violinists Gidon Kremer, Daniel Hope, Hilary Hahn and Vadim Gluzman; cellists Alisa Weilerstein and Gautier Capuçon; violists Kim Kashkashian, Nobuko Imai and Lawrence Power, and many others. Her orchestral works have been by performed by some of the world’s leading orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Staatskapelle Dresden and ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, with conductors such as Manfred Honeck, Christoph Eschenbach, Alan Gilbert, Neeme Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Charles Dutoit, Andris Nelsons and Marin Alsop, to name a few.
Lera Auerbach is equally prolific in literature and the visual arts. She incorporates these forms into her professional creative process, often simultaneously expressing ideas visually, in words, and through music. Auerbach holds multiple degrees from The Juilliard School in New York and the Hannover University of Music, Drama, and Media in Germany. Her teachers include Milton Babbitt, Rosalyn Tureck, Joseph Kalichstein and Einar Steen-Nøkleberg. The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, selected her in 2007 as a Young Global Leader, and since 2014 she has served as a Cultural Leader. Her music is published by Boosey and Hawkes/Sikorski.
