©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. With an unusually broad and voracious appetite for repertoire, he has already performed more than 30 standard violin concertos as well as rarely performed works.

Stephen has performed with orchestras such as the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, hr-Sinfonieorchester, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique, Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, Halle Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, and Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, with conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Marin Alsop, Constantinos Carydis, Nicholas McGegan, Maxime Pascal, and Elim Chan.

After a busy summer, including returns to the Aspen Festival, Münchner Symphoniker, and Wigmore Hall, the 2022/23 season sees Waarts make his debuts with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin with Stephanie Childress, and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra with Sir András Schiff, with further concerts planned with Philharmonie Zuidnederland, Cappella Aquileia at Opera Festival Heidenheim, and the Nash Ensemble amongst others.

A passionate recitalist and chamber musician, Waarts has appeared in recital at Philharmonie Luxembourg, Philharmonie Haarlem, Fundación Juan March, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Auditorium du Louvre, Vancouver Recital Society and Wigmore Hall, in addition to the Boulez Saal and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Waarts’ regular collaborators include Andras Schiff, Tabea Zimmermann, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Martin Helmchen, and Timothy Ridout. Waarts has appeared regularly at festivals including Aspen, Marlboro, Krzyżowa, Con Spirito Leipzig, Rheingau, and Jerusalem, with upcoming performances at Heidelberger Frühling, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schloss Elmau as part of Tabea Zimmermann’s residency, and SmorgasChord Festival in Oxford.

2022 saw the release of Waarts’ highly anticipated first concerto recording for Alpha Classics: Mozart Violin Concerto No.1 with the Camerata Schweiz under Howard Griffiths. Other releases include Hindemith Kammermusik No.4, as part of Ondine Classic’s Kammermusik cycle with Christoph Eschenbach, the Kronberg Academy Soloists and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra in 2020. He released his 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 the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in 2019. In March 2017 he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant. He also won the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s soloist award the same year and has performed at the festival every year since then. In 2015, he was awarded the Mozart Gesellschaft Dortmund scholarship following his appearance at the Krzyżowa-Music Festival. 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 is currently a Fellow at the Kronberg Academy, having graduated in 2021 studying under Mihaela Martin. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from the Curtis Institute, Philadelphia, where he studied under Aaron Rosand. Prior to this he 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. Stephen is part of the Development Programme of the Orpheum Foundation for the Advancement of Young Soloists.

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

“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)