©Photo: Emma Wernig

©Photo: Emma Wernig

©Photo: Emma Wernig

©Photo: Emma Wernig

Stephen Waarts

Violin

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“I’m convinced he is the real deal.”
(Gramophone)

Stephen Waarts’ innate and poetic musical voice has established him as a firm favourite with audiences across the globe.

Stephen has performed with orchestras such as Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Halle Orchestra, with conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Andras Schiff, Marin Alsop, Constantinos Carydis, Nicholas McGegan, Maxime Pascal, Markus Stenz and Elim Chan.

In the 2023/24 season, Waarts will make his debut with Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto under the baton of Robert Spano, Berner Symphonieorchester performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5 with Dalia Stasevska, and Donnacha Dennehy’s Violin Concerto with Killian Farrell and Meininger Hofkapelle. Further dates include concerts with Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and Aziz Shokhakimov as part of Settimane Musicali Ascona, and Armenian State Symphony Orchestra performing Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto.

A passionate recitalist and chamber musician, Waarts debuts at San Francisco Performances and returns to the Vancouver Recital Society with Jonathan Swensen and Juho Pohjonen, Wigmore Hall with Timothy Ridout and Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, and he appears at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg with Sir Andras Schiff and friends. He has also appeared in recital at Philharmonie Luxembourg, Philharmonie Haarlem, Fundación Juan March, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Auditorium du Louvre, in addition to the Boulez Saal and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Waarts’ regular chamber partners include Andras Schiff, Francesco Piemontesi, Daniel Müller-Schott, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Timothy Ridout, Tabea Zimmermann, and Martin Helmchen. Waarts has appeared regularly at festivals including Aspen, Marlboro, Gstaad, Krzyżowa, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheingau and Jerusalem.

Waarts’ diverse recording releases include Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.1 with Camerata Schweiz under Howard Griffiths for Alpha Classics, and Hindemith’s Kammermusik No.4, as part of Ondine Classic’s Kammermusik cycle with Christoph Eschenbach, the Kronberg Academy Soloists and Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra in 2020. He released his acclaimed debut recital album for Rubicon Classics in November 2018 with pianist Gabriele Carcano, featuring works by Schumann and Bartók.

Stephen was awarded the International Classical Music Awards Orchestra Award by Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in 2019. In March 2017 he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. He also won Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s soloist award the same year and has performed at the festival every year since. In 2015, he was awarded a scholarship from Mozart Gesellschaft Dortmund following his appearance at Krzyżowa-Music. In the same year, his prize-winning success at the 2015 Queen Elisabeth Competition – including securing the majority vote of the television audience – boosted international attention.

Stephen studied at the Kronberg Academy under Mihaela Martin, and at the Curtis Institute, Philadelphia, with Aaron Rosand. He also worked with Itzhak Perlman at the Perlman Music Program, and Li Lin and Alexander Barantschik in San Francisco. In 2013 he won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York, aged just 17. He was also prize-winner at the 2013 Montreal International Competition and won first prize at the 2014 Menuhin Competition.

HarrisonParrott represents Stephen Waarts for worldwide general management.

Claude Debussy : Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor, L140, 1st movement I. Allegro vivo © Wigmore Hall

Eugène Ysaÿe: Reve d'Enfant © Wigmore Hall

Jean Sibelius: Humoresque op. 89, no. 3 © Wigmore Hall

Suk: Elegie for Piano Trio, Op. 23, Under the Impression of Zeyer's Vysehrad; Stephen Waarts, Ildikó Szabó and Kirill Gerstein at Hope@Home © Cobalt Productions 2020

Suk: Four pieces, Op. 17 No.2 Appassionato; Stephen Waarts, Ildikó Szabó and Kirill Gerstein at Hope@Home © Cobalt Productions 2020

Mozart Sinfonia Concertante in Es-Dur K. 364, 1. Satz © Kronberg Academy's Violin Masterclasses & Concerts 2019

Stephen Waarts - Movement 1- Brahms: Violin Concerto, with hr-sinfonieochester, conducted by Eschenbach

Stephen Waarts - Movement 2- Brahms: Violin Concerto, with hr-sinfonieochester, conducted by Eschenbach

Stephen Waarts - Movement 3- Brahms: Violin Concerto, with hr-sinfonieochester, conducted by Eschenbach

“This young artist, who stood on stage completely unpretentiously, delivered a huge performance, conquered the audience in no time.”

Marita Kasischke, Heidenheim, July 2023

“For Stephen Waarts to have stepped in and played the fearlessly virtuosic Busoni sonata so well was impressive, to say the least. He played the outer movements of the “Kreutzer” with compelling and bright-toned verve.”

Sebastian Scotney, TheArtsDesk, March 2023

“When he begins to play, he burns with expressive fire and tonal vitality.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung

“[Schubert’s Konzertstück] is now brought to light by the charismatic violinist Stephen Waarts in a similarly fragile beauty. Unbelievably variable in terms of sound, with charm and wit in the sense of humorously accentuated escalation.”

(August 2021, Wiesbadener Kurier)

“Stephen Waarts’s debut album on Rubicon has already disclosed a Bartók interpreter of terrific flair; here he tore into the gypsy roots of the underrated Second Rhapsody as if letting go after several rounds with Ravel’s Tzigane.”

(The Strad, April 2021)

“His clear and sharp sound and his unparalleled technique are tailor-made for this chiseled work” (Hindemith, Kammermusik No.4)

(Pierre Jean Tribot, Crescendo Magazine, September 2020)

“[..] a young master, who has the makings of a really great career, had played here at Schoenberg’s “New Names”

(Westfälische Nachrichten, January 2020)

“The violinist Stephen Waarts [..] had lots of fire, energy and passion with the technical ability to jump every unplayable hurdle with ease. And last but not least, of course, a musically unmistakable charisma.”

(Westfalen-Blatt, January 2020)

“I’m convinced he is the real deal.”

(Gramophone, February 2019)

“The slow movement was particularly striking, as Waarts sang the contemplative characteristics in a mature way that brought to mind a young Yehudi Menuhin”

(Aamulehti, September 2017)

“The music’s expressive power was always controlled and his beautiful tone enriched every note.”

(The Strad, August 2017)

“Mr. Waarts was commanding in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor…Mr. Waarts tapped into tensions within the Neo-Classical veneer of Prokofiev’s music. That opening movement goes through dramatic shifts, from moments of dreamy lyricism, which Mr. Waarts shaped with melting beauty, to bursts of perpetual-motion busyness, which he dispatched with articulate fervor.”

(Anthony Tommasini, NY Times, May 2017)

“The Dutch-American violinist has a vigorous, energetic touch and a very advanced technique. The music sounds elegant and cultured when he sings it with his silver tone.”

(Dortmunder Kultur, February 2017)

“The Eindhovense listeners at least have recognised and embraced him as a musical genius.”

(Eindhovens Dagblad, October 2016)

“Stephen Waarts gave an outstanding debut at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater. In a fine program of Beethoven, Bartok, Ravel and Waxman — difficult music, in a range of styles and impeccably rendered — Waarts showed an uncommon, preternatural sense of tonal color and lyrical beauty on the instrument.”

(The Washington Post)

“Still in his teens, Stephen Waarts, as tall and thin as Ichabod Crane but with an angelic countenance that mirrored his fiddling, played the Brahms Concerto with unreal poise, technical command, and a totally natural sense of musical drama, complementing conductor Maxim Vengerov’s visionary approach and the Montreal Symphony’s inspired playing.”

(Strings Magazine)

“Mr. Waarts showed himself a technically accomplished and musically insightful artist, though he was most impressive in Bartok’s extraordinary Sonata for Solo Violin. Mr. Waarts, playing commandingly from memory, balanced passages that evolve in the halting dance idiom of the chaconne with rhapsodic stretches that in this gripping account seemed somberly ruminative. He was comparably inspired in the resolute intricate fugue, the searching slow movement marked Melodia, and the frenetic finale.”

(The New York Times)

“Waarts displayed well-polished sonorities that were consistently executed with cleanliness and clarity. He played through his part as if nothing Mendelssohn had written posed any unmanageable challenge. This was familiar music; but the execution had a freshness to it. This was a reading that seized attention from the opening notes and held it to the final cadence.”

(Examiner.com)

“From the first note … I was hooked, and within a few bars, I was moved to tears”

(The Strad) - 2010 Menuhin Competition in Oslo, Norway

“In the finale, we saw a return of Waarts’ agility and speed as he and the orchestra flew to a rousing finale. The audience leapt to their feet to give him what is sure to be one of many standing ovations in what is sure to be a stellar career.”

(Daily Republic)