Artists

Swiss violinist Sebastian Bohren has forged a distinctive career as a first-rate soloist, empathetic chamber musician and collaborator, acclaimed recording artist and inspired entrepreneur. With a wide-ranging repertoire that spans the Baroque era to the present day, he has been praised for his “bravura playing” (The Sunday Times) and interpretations imbued with “charm and elegance” (The Strad). Gramophone magazine has described “a listening experience that commands the attention from start to finish”, summoning, “Which way will Sebastian Bohren’s questing approach to repertoire take him next?”

Sebastian Bohren’s 2026-27 season is striking for the number of new collaborations and first performances of repertoire both old and new. Highlights include Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern and Christoph Eschenbach, his first public performances of J. S. Bach’s complete Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin; and first performances of Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, on tour with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. Sebastian will venture to Mexico for the first time to perform Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto with the OFUNAM under Catherine Larsen-Maguire, and lead master classes at the Guadalajara International Music Festival. Other concerto highlights include an Italian tour with the Bolzano String Academy conducted by Heinz Holliger, performing Frank Martin’s medieval-inspired masterpiece Polyptyque; and Felix Mendelssohn’s youthful Double Concerto alongside pianist Martin James Bartlett with the London Mozart Players. Sebastian’s season also includes a host of chamber music concerts including several string trio performances with violist Isabelle van Keulen and cellist Patrick Demenga.

Previous highlights include Barber’s Violin Concerto with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano conducted by Emmanuel Tjeknavorian; Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto on tour with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and Enrico Onofri; Henri Dutilleux’s violin concerto “L’arbre des songes” with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano under the baton of Jac van Steen and his debut in the Great Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic with the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin performing the composer’s own adaptation for violin of Schumann’s Cello Concerto. Further concerto appearances include Mendelssohn and Szymanowski with Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; Beethoven with Michael Sanderling and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra; Mendelssohn and Eötvös with Ivor Bolton and Sinfonieorchester Basel; Bartok with Heinz Holliger and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana; Lindberg and Vasks with Thierry Fischer and the Munich Chamber Orchestra; Mozart with Marc Minkowski and the Basel Chamber Orchestra; and Berg with Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and Otto Tausk. He has also collaborated with conductors, Elim Chan, James Gaffigan, Mario Venzago, Cristian Macelaru and Christoph Poppen.

Sebastian Bohren’s passion for music of the 20^th and 21^st centuries is reflected in several future concerto projects, including a tour with Heinz Holliger and Kremerata Baltica performing Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Concerto funebre; the premiere of a new Violin Concerto by Swiss composer Martin Wettstein together with the Musikkollegium Winterthur; and the commission of a double concerto by Thomas Demenga, to be premiered alongside Richard Tognetti.

Sebastian Bohren’s chamber music credentials include membership in the Stradivari Quartet for seven years (2013 – 2020), performing internationally in such venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing and Victoria Hall in Singapore. In recital, his collaborators have included pianists Andreas Haefliger, Yekwon Sunwoo and Claire Huangci; clarinettist Reto Bieri; saxophonist Valentine Michaud; violinists Hansheinz Schneeberger, Josef Spacek, Daniel Hope and Dmitri Sitkovetsky; violist Antoine Tamestit; and cellists Thomas Demenga, Anastasia Kobekina and Christian Poltera.

Sebastian Bohren’s distinguished discography embraces classic concertos, innovative arrangements and world-premieres. His most recent release, on AVIE Records, is Magnus Lindberg’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with conductor Sergej Bolkhovets and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Also on AVIE is the premiere recording of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks’ second violin concerto, “In Evening Light”, and a pair of Mozart concertos, with Gabor Takacs-Nagy conducting the Swiss-based CHAARTS Ensemble. For RCA Red Seal, Sebastian has recorded the concertos of Beethoven, Britten, Mendelssohn, and Karl Amadeus Hartmann; and for Sony Classical, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata in an arrangement by Andrei Pushkarev for violin, string orchestra and percussion.

In 2023, Sebastian Bohren established the Swiss-based Brugg Festival, an annual week-long gathering in the autumn that hosts a variety of international musicians and offers a robust educational element, “echo”, that attracts over 2,000 school children from diverse backgrounds. In the same year, Sebastian founded Eniteo Arts Management, a boutique agency that organizes and manages orchestral tours from its base in Switzerland, with an international reach in collaboration with selected partners. Sebastian is also the artistic director of Stretta Concerts, a year-long series of concerts featuring soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras from throughout Europe.

Sebastian plays a 1761 violin made in Parma by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, the “Ex-Wanamaker-Hart”.