Rebekka Hartmann, Rachmaninoff International Orchestra & Kent Nagano
Biography Rebekka Hartmann, Rachmaninoff International Orchestra & Kent Nagano
Rebekka Hartmann
begins playing the violin at the age of five with Suzuki teacher Helge Thelen. She studies in Munich with Prof. Andreas Reiner and in Los Angeles with Prof. Alice Schoenfeld. Furthermore she receives valuable inspiration from international master classes.
Rebekka Hartmann has won prizes in numerous national and international competitions, including the International Henri Marteau Violin Competition, Lichtenberg (2005), the “Pacem in Terris” competition, Bayreuth (2004) and the “Jascha Heifetz Scholarship”, USA (2002).
Her international concert activities bring her together with conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Enoch zu Guttenberg and Kent Nagano. Appearances as a soloist take her throughout Europe, Asia and the USA as well as important festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the “Weilburger Schlosskonzerte”, and the Herrenchiemsee International Music Festival.
Her repertoire covers the entire spectrum of violin literature from the early baroque to new music. Numerous CD recordings have been released, including on the Munich label FARAO classics with solo works by Bach, Hindemith and B.A. Zimmermann. For her CD “Birth of the Violin” she receives the 2012 ECHO KLASSIK Prize for “Best Solo Recording of the Year”. In 2015, the CD “Views from Ararat” with works by Armenian and Turkish composers with her piano duo partner Margarita Oganesjan was released under the FARAO classics label. “Silhouettes”, the complete chamber music work by the Russian composer Paul Juon, also follows on Musiques Suisses together with Swiss Radio. In September 2018 “Out of the Shadow” with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists under the direction of Lavard Skou Larsen at Solo Musica.
Rebekka Hartmann is, among other things, Founder of the concert series “Musik in den Häusern auf dem Land” (Music across the countryside).
Rebekka Hartmann plays a violin by Antonio Stradivari from 1675, which was named “Hartmann Stradivari”.
Kent Nagano
is considered one of today’s outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. From 2015–2025 he is General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg. He will be the next Chief conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (OCNE) in Madrid starting in September 2026. In addition, he is committed together with Jan Vogler as Artistic Director of the Ring project “The Wagner Cycles” of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln, and as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival. He has been Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, Concerto Köln since 2019, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2021 and the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since 2023.
As a much sought-after guest conductor, Kent Nagano regularly works with leading international orchestras worldwide, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique Radio France, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris, the Chicago and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest and the Wiener Symphoniker.
In September 2021, Kent Nagano published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In "10 Lessons of my Life", he recalls ten deeply personal encounters from which he learned important lessons, not only for his career but for his life more broadly.
In February 2024, Kent Nagano was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal President and in June 2024 he was awarded the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor. Kent Nagano is the recipient of the 2024 Brahms Prize of the Brahms Society of
Schleswig-Holstein.
Rachmaninoff International Orchestra
Composed of preeminent musicians from Eastern and Western Europe, the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra’s recordings and performances draw from the wide breadth of classical repertoire, with a focus on the Romantic and modern composers whose works have been the hallmark of Mikhail Pletnev’s celebrated interpretations. Like its namesake – composer, pianist, and conductor Sergei Rachmaninoff – the RIO is dedicated to the highest standards of performance and artistic expression.
