Prof. Dr. Friedemann Eichhorn

Born in Münster (Germany) in 1971, Friedemann Eichhorn has maintained a close connection with Kronberg Academy since 2000. As a participant in the first Chamber Music Connects the World festival, he played alongside Yuri Bashmet, Eugene Istomin, Gidon Kremer and Boris Pergamenschikow. 

Friedemann Eichhorn devotes a substantial portion of his work to the development of gifted young violinists. In 2002 he was appointed to the Liszt School of Music in Weimar as one of Germany's youngest violin professors and for many years has been the Director of the Department of String Instruments and Harp there. He is also the Artistic Director of the International Louis Spohr Competition for Young Violinists in Weimar. In addition, Friedemann Eichhorn spent many years teaching at the Mozarteum International Summer Academy in Salzburg.

Friedemann Eichhorn was appointed as the Director of Kronberg Academy Study Programmes in 2012.

The versatile soloist performs in Germany and other countries with a number of renowned orchestras that include, for example, the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and has played under the baton of Yehudi Menuhin. His repertoire includes more than 40 violin concertos ranging from Bach to Berg. His first released recordings of the complete concertos of Pierre Rode (Naxos), which he rediscovered for the concert hall, were highly acclaimed. As a chamber musician he is a welcome guest at many festivals. Friedemann Eichhorn has a keen interest in exploring a wide variety of musical idioms. His discography includes tango CDs and recordings of rarely performed works for violin and piano by Franz Liszt (with R-D Arens on Hänssler classic).

Alongside his concert performances, Friedemann Eichhorn is also a committed musicologist. His doctoral thesis was on Gidon Kremer. He has written lexicon articles (e.g. for the new edition of the MGG) and edits scores for music publishers such as Schott Music. From 2002 to 2007 he was the Director of the Schlossfestspiele Zwingenberg.

Friedemann Eichhorn grew up in Speyer and began his violin studies with Valery Gradow at the Academy of Music in Mannheim at the age of 16, simultaneously preparing for and completing his end-of-school examinations (Abitur) by remote study. He then went on to study with Alberto Lysy at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad, Switzerland, and with Margaret Pardee at the Juilliard School in New York. He subsequently studied musicology, law and codicology at the University of Mainz (graduating with a PhD). He has been the recipient of the 2005 George Enescu Medal awarded by the Romanian Cultural Institute since 2005. He plays a Nicola Gagliano violin dating from 1758.

Contact: masters(at)kronbergacademy.de