Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart（1756-1791）
Duo for Violin & Viola No.1 in G major, K.423
I.Allegro
II.Adagio
III.Rondeau:Allegro

 

Jean-Marie Leclair（1697- 1764）
Sonata for 2 Violins in D major, Op.3 No.6
I.Andante
II.Allegro
III.Largo

IV.Allegro ma non troppo

 

Charles-Auguste de Bériot（1802-1870）
Concertant Duet in D major, Op.57 No.3
I.Moderato
II.Adagio
III.Allegretto

 

- intermission -

 

Béla Bartók（1881-1945）
44 Duos for 2 Violins, Sz.98 (Excerpts)
I.Transylvanian Dance, No.44
II.A Fairy Tale, No.19
III.Burlesque, No.16
IV.Bagpipes, No.36
V.New Year’s Song, No.21
VI.Arabian Song, No.42

 

Eugène Ysaÿe（1858-1931）
Sonata for 2 Violins in A minor
I.Poco lento, maestoso - Allegro fermo
II.Allegretto poco lento
III.Finale. Allegro vivo e con fuoco

 

*program is subject to change

 

 

Brimful of energy, Antje Weithaas brings her compelling musical intelligence and technical mastery to every detail of the music. Her charisma and stage presence are captivating, but never overshadow the works themselves. She has a wide-ranging repertoire that includes the great concertos by Mozart, Beethoven and Schumann, new works such as Jörg Widmann’s Violin Concerto, modern classics by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Ligeti and Gubaidulina, and lesser performed concertos by Hartmann and Schoeck.

 

As a soloist, Antje Weithaas has worked with most of Germany’s leading orchestras, including the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Bamberg Symphony and the major German radio orchestras, numerous major international orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra and the BBC Symphony, as well as and the leading orchestras of the Netherlands, Scandinavia, and Asia. She has collaborated with the illustrious conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Dmitri Kitayenko, Sir Neville Marriner, Marc Albrecht, Yakov Kreizberg, Sakari Oramo and Carlos Kalmar.

 

Antje Weithaas begins the 2023/24 season with concerts at Marie-Elisabeth Hecker’s and Martin Helmchen’s new Fliessen (Flow) Chamber Music Festival and at the Schubertiade. She continues her musical partnership with harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani in three concerts at the Wigmore Hall and at the Lammermuir Festival. Other highlights include concerts with Ensemble Resonanz, Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg, Philharmonie Zuidnederland, Camerata Bern and Kammerakademie Potsdam. With the Duisburger Philharmoniker under Axel Kober, she will premiere the new version of Manfred Trojahn’s Violin Concerto. She will make her debut in the Pierre Boulez Saal in a duo recital with Dénes Várjon. In trio concerts with Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Martin Helmchen, she will also appear at the Oberstdorfer Musiksommer and the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele.

 

 

Through her infectious zest for communication, Antje Weithaas’ reputation for inspiring play-lead concerts with international renowned chamber orchestras is rapidly growing. Having been the Camerata Bern’s artistic director for almost ten years, she was responsible for the ensemble’s musical profile, leading large works such as Beethoven’s symphonies, and recording music by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Beethoven. Her concerts as artiste associé of the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris in the 2021/22 season led to several new projects including their play-conduct academy. From July to August 2025, Antje Weithaas will be touring South America with the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra to give seven concerts in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, while play-lead works by Mendelssohn, Ravel and Mozart.

 

Antje Weithaas produced a reference recording of Beethoven and Berg’s violin concertos in 2013 with the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra under Steven Sloane (CAvi-music). The Arcanto Quartet’s highly acclaimed recordings were released by Harmonia Mundi, including works by Bartók, Brahms, Ravel, Dutilleux, Debussy, Schubert and Mozart. The label cpo released her recordings of Max Bruch’s complete works for violin and orchestra with the NDR Radio Philharmonic under Hermann Bäumer to great acclaim. There were rave reviews for Antje Weithaas’ project for CAvi, the complete recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Solo Sonatas and Partitas and Eugène Ysaÿe’s Solo Sonatas. Two CDs were released in 2019: a recording of the Violin Concerto by Robert Schumann and the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms with the NDR Radio Philharmonic, cellist Maximilian Hornung and conductor Andrew Manze, which recently received the BBC Music Magazine’s “Concerto” Award, and a recording of the Violin Concerto and Concerto-Rhapsody by Khachaturian with the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie and conductor Daniel Raiskin. During 2023-24, the Complete Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin, recorded by Antje and pianist Dénes Várjon, were released by CAvi-music, which was awarded “German Record Critics’ Annual Award”. In 2024, CAvi-music released the album of Vasks: Concerto No.2 for Violin and String Orchestra “In Evening Light” by Antje and Camerata Bern, which was awarded “2025 Instrumentalist of the Year” by Opus Klassik.

 

Antje Weithaas began playing the violin at the age of four and later studied at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin with Professor Werner Scholz. She won the Kreisler Competition in Graz in 1987 and the Bach Competition in Leipzig in 1988, as well as the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hanover in 1991. Together with Oliver Wille, she has taken over the artistic leadership of the renowned Joachim competition in 2019. After teaching at the Universität der Künste Berlin, Antje Weithaas became a professor of violin at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in 2004. She plays on a 2001 Peter Greiner violin.

 

 

Ning Feng
Ning Feng is recognised internationally as an artist of great lyricism, innate musicality and stunning virtuosity. He performs across the globe with major orchestras and conductors, and in recital and chamber concerts in some of the most important international series and festivals. The Washington Post has described him as “a wonderful player with a creamy, easy tone and an emotional honesty” and Gramophone magazine said of his recent Brahms Sonatas recording that his “tone is simply ravishing, even when it soars into the stratosphere…”.

 

Highlights in the 24/25 season include performance with Academy of St Martin in -the Fields on a tour to China, Aalborg Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestras. In recent seasons Ning Feng has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, National Symphony and Minnesota Orchestras in the US. In Europe he performs regularly with the very top orchestras, including Bavarian Radio Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Vienna Radio, Helsinki Philharmonic and Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra and in the UK with orchestras including London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic and Bournemouth Symphony. Elsewhere, he returned recently to the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony and KBS Symphony in Seoul. Conductors with whom he has worked include Gianandrea Noseda, Marin Alsop, Tugan Sokhiev, Vassily Petrenko, Long Yu, Jia Lv, Muhai Tang, Guoyong Zhang, Yang Yang, Xincao Li, Yi Zhang, Daye Lin, Yi Huang and etc.

 

In China, Ning is held in the highest regard, appearing with all the major Chinese orchestras, in recital and regularly with visiting international orchestras such as Hong Kong Philharmonic, with whom he has toured Asia, Europe and Australia with van Zweden and Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer, Berlin Konzerthaus Orchester and Lawrence Foster, and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. In 20/21 he was Artist-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and in 23/24 he was the Artist-in-Residence at China NCPA where he performed the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin and play-lead NCPA Orchestra to perform Mozart’s 5 Violin Concerti. This season he will perform extensively throughout China as concerto soloist and in solo and chamber recital.

 

Ning performs regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall, returning in July 2025 for a duo recital with Yeol Eum Som. Other recital highlights in Europe this season include trio recitals with Nelson Goerner and Edgar Moreau and solo recitals with a programme of Bach and Paganini. He has performed many times at Kissinger Sommer Festival and at other festivals including Schubertiade, Schleswig-Holstein, Heidelberg, Ludwigsburg and has collaborated with artists such as Daniel Müller-Schott, Nicholas Angelich and Igor Levit.

 

Ning Feng records for Channel Classics. His recording of Bach’s complete solo works for violin was hailed by Gramophone as “unlike anyone else’s… it’s the illusion of a freewheeling conversation projected from within” His discography also includes concerti by Elgar and Tchaikovsky, works for violin and orchestra by Bruch, Sarasate, Lalo, Ravel and others, the 24 Paganini Caprices and the complete Brahms Sonatas with Zee Zee. His recent release in November 2024 is Shostakovich and Prokofiev Violin Concertos, with Bochum Symphony Orchestra and Tung-Chieh Chuang.

 

Born in Chengdu, China, Ning Feng studied at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music with Weimin Hu, the Hanns Eisler School of Music (Berlin) with Antje Weithaas and the Royal Academy of Music (London) with Hu Kun. He was First Prize winner of both the 2005 Michael Hill International Violin Competition (New Zealand) and 2006 International Paganini Competition.

 

Ning Feng plays the 1710 Stradivari violin known as the “Vieuxtemps Hauser” , by kind arrangement with Premiere Performances of Hong Kong, and plays on strings by Thomastik-Infeld, Vienna. He lives in Berlin and is a Violin Professor at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule and also holds the position of International Chair of Violin at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. In China, he is the Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Academy at Zhejiang Conservatory of Music and Vice-Dean of the Violin Institute at Sichuan Conservatory of Music.