- Violin
TANJA BECKER-BENDER Violinist Born in Stuttgart, Germany, into a family of scientists and musicians of Bohemian origin, Tanja Becker-Bender burst onto the violinists’ scene already as a young girl, winning 1st prize in Italy’s Lipizer competition at age 18, as well as top prize in the Geneva International competition shortly after. Tokyo’s renowned Bunkamura Orchard Hall Award and prizes in the international competitions of Genoa, Houston, and Chimay in Belgium evened out her path of regular solo performances with eminent orchestras such as the Tokyo Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, and Houston Symphony, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart of the SWR, Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, and the Vienna, Zurich and Prague Chamber orchestras, as well as the English Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra Leopoldinun Wroclaw. Conductors she has collaborated with include Kurt Masur, Gerd Albrecht, Peter Ruzicka, Fabio Luisi, Uriel Segal, Hartmut Haenchen, Hubert Soudant, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Dan Ettinger, Zsolt Nagy and Carlos Miguel Prieto. Regular festival performances include those of Schleswig Holstein, Mecklenburg Vorpommern, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Rheingau, Engadin, West Cork, Chautauqua (US), and Kronberg, with chamber music partners such as Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Boris Pergamenschikow, Péter Nagy, Ralf Gothóni, Alexander Lonquich, Sofya Melikyan, Eduard Brunner, Andrzej Bauer, Miguel da Silva, Lawrence Power, Claudio Bohórquez, Dimitry Ashkenazy, and many others.
Tanja Becker-Bender has studied in Stuttgart, London, Vienna, and New York, with some of the world’s leading quartet musicians: Wilhelm Melcher (Melos Quartett), David Takeno, Günter Pichler (Alban Berg Quartett), Robert Mann (Juilliard String Quartet) – also finding important inspiration through Bartók’s student György Sándor in New York and through Ferenc Rados in Budapest, as well as through work with Eberhard Feltz in Berlin.
Besides the core pieces of the violin repertoire, she performs a wide range of styles and genres, from Baroque period instruments to collaborations with composers of our time such as Cristóbal Halffter, Peter Ruzicka, Peteris Vasks and Michael Gielen, and first performances of works by Rolf Hempel, Alexander Goehr, Gabriel Irányi and Benedict Mason. Performances of Concertos such as the one by Max Reger – the longest violin concerto ever written – those of the 1920ies composers Kurt Weill and Ernst Krenek and the landmark Concerto by György Ligeti belong to her notable projects as well as solo recitals with the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas, Paganini’s 24 Caprices or solo programs themed around the 1920ies.
In 2009, a fruitful collaboration with the British label Hyperion began. Her recording of Paganini’s 24 Capricci was a great success right away, being praised by critics around the world and awarded the “Editor’s Choice” of both Gramophone and Classic FM magazines. Subsequently, her next recordings set out to explore lesser known repertoire: Schulhoff, Hindemith, Respighi, as well as the Violin Concertos by Reger, by Busoni and by Strauss. These have received distinctions by the “BBC Music Magazine”, the International Record Review, German “Fonoforum”, and French “Classica”. Additionally, a double disc album with Bartók’s complete works for violin and piano was released by the SWRmusic/Naxos label, as well as an album by the cpo label with three violin concertos by Friedrich Eck, a virtuoso contemporary and friend of Mozart. A recording of 1920ies Concertos together with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin will be released by the label Es-Dur.
In 2006 she was appointed professor at the University of Music in Saarbrücken, taking the chair which Maxim Vengerov held before. Since 2009, she is professor of violin at the University for Music and Theater in Hamburg. Students of her class have become laureates at important international solo and chamber music competitions, enjoy versatile chamber music careers and play in renowned orchestras worldwide. Season 2024/25; please publish only this version without cuts or changes.
Source : https://www.tanja-becker-bender.de/english/vita.php