Susanne Stanzeleit

One of the leading violinists of her generation, Susanne Stanzeleit has performed worldwide as a soloist and chamber musician. She is well known for her unusually challenging and extensive repertoire, featuring many commissions and UK premieres of works by composers such as Peter Maxwell Davies, John Adams, Lou Harrison, György Kurtág, John Woolrich, Philip Cashian and many others.

She has appeared at numerous festivals, most notably in the UK at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Dartington International Summer School, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newbury, Canterbury, Swansea, York Late Music and the IMS Open Chamber Music. Internationally she has performed at Barcelona New Music, and at festivals in Ohrid, Varna, Riga, Italy, New York State, Cyprus, Malta, Dublin and Warszaw.

She was first violin of the Edinburgh String Quartet until 2002 and co-leader of Sinfonia 21, as well as guest-leading many of the foremost chamber orchestras and contemporary music groups in the UK. A popular chamber musician, she has performed with eminent artists such as Gervase de Peyer, Eduard Brunner, Zara Nelsova, Colin Carr, Steven Doane, Norbert Brainin and Michael Collins, as well as regular pianist partners, Julian Jacobson and Gusztáv Fenyő. In 2005 she founded the Primrose Piano Quartet with Robin Ireland, Bernard Gregor-Smith and John Thwaites.

Susanne Stanzeleit has broadcast for BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, German Radio and other major TV and radio stations abroad. She has received rave reviews and a Gramophone Award nomination for her long list of commercial recordings, which feature the complete works of Bartók, Enescu and Dvorák as well as Beethoven violin sonatas, works by Charles Camilleri and a series of English sonata recordings. Chamber recordings include six discs with the Edinburgh Quartet, chamber music by Kenneth Leighton and two CDs of British piano quartets with the Primrose Quartet, all on Meridian.

Susanne Stanzeleit studied with Leonid Kogan, Nathan Milstein, Vesselin Paraschkevov, Yfrah Neaman, Sándor Végh and György Kurtág. She has won several prizes at international competitions, including the 1992 London International String Quartet Competition while leader of the Werethina String Quartet. From 1993 to 2000 she was visiting lecturer of violin and chamber music at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, and from 2002 to 2006 Head of Strings at the London College of Music and Media. In 2007 she was appointed as guest professor at the Birmingham Conservatoire