Julia Hagen

Naturalness and warmth, vitality, and the courage to take risks: These qualities are often used to describe Julia Hagen’s playing. The young cellist, born 1995 in Salzburg, is just as convincing as a soloist with orchestra as she is in recital or in numerous chamber music constellations alongside prominent partners. She combines technical mastery with high artistic standards and a direct, communicative approach to musicmaking. 

She has performed with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica della Valle d’Aosta, Kurpfalz Chamber Orchestra Mannheim, Quarta4 Orchestra, the National Youth Orchestra of Romania, Orchestra Sinfonica Abruzzese, the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Konzerthausorchester Berlin and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra of Turin. She is likewise a welcome guest at major festivals such as Beethovenfest Bonn, the Allegro Vivo Festival, Diabelli Sommer, the Piatti Festival, Festival d’Aix en Provence, Rencontres musicales d’Evian and Musiktage Mondsee, as well as at Wiener Konzerthaus and the Società dei Concerti Trieste.

Amongst her many chamber music activities, her trio concerts with Igor Levit and Renaud Capuçon at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, London’s Wigmore Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein and her performances of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Canticle of the Sun with the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Salzburger Festspiele are particularly worth mentioning. Other chamber music partners include Anneleen Lenaerts, Mao Fujita, Lukas Sternath, Nikolai Lugansky and Sir András Schiff.

Julia Hagen began playing the cello at the age of five. Her training with Enrico Bronzi in Salzburg and Reinhard Latzko in Vienna was followed by formative years in Heinrich Schiff’s Viennese class from 2013 to 2015, and finally by studies with Jens Peter Maintz at the University of the Arts in Berlin. As a Kronberg Academy scholarship holder, Hagen also studied with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt until 2022. She was a prize winner of the Liezen International Cello Competition and the Mazzacurati Cello Competition and was awarded the Hajek-Boss-Wagner Culture Prize and the Nicolas Firmenich Prize of the Verbier Festival Academy as the best young cellist, among other prizes.

In 2019, she released her first album together with Annika Treutler with the two cello sonatas by Johannes Brahms on Hänssler Classic. Further recordings are in preparation. 

Julia Hagen plays an instrument by Francesco Ruggieri (Cremona, 1684), which is privately on loan to her.

From 2019 to 2022, she studied at Kronberg Academy with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. These studies were funded by the Ratjen/Leber Scholarship.