Nils Mönkemeyer

Artistic brilliance and innovative programming are the trademarks that have earned Nils Mönkemeyer a reputation as one of the world’s most successful violists, dramatically raising the profile of his instrument.
Under his exclusive contract with Sony Classical, Mönkemeyer has released numerous CDs over the past years, all of which have won critical acclaim and prestigious awards. His programmes run the gamut from rediscoveries and first recordings of original 18th-century viola literature, to contemporary repertoire and arrangements of his own. The most recently released CDs are recordings of Walton, Bruch and Pärt with the Bamberg Symphony under the direction of Markus Poschner, the chamber music album “Baroque” and the latest album where Nils Mönkemeyer together with the ensemble l´arte del mondo combines Paganini’s Sonata per la Grand‘ Viola e Orchestra with arrangements of cello and bassoon concertos by Antonio Vivaldi and „L’arte del arco“ by Giuseppe Tartini.

Nils Mönkemeyer works together with conductors such as Andrej Boreyko, Sylvain Cambreling, Constantinos Carydis, Nicholas Collon, Reinhard Goebel, Elias Grandy, Pietari Inkinen, Vladimir Jurowski, Joana Mallwitz, Andrew Manze, Cornelius Meister, Mark Minkowski, Kent Nagano, Markus Poschner, Kristiina Poska, Michael Sanderling, Clemens Schuldt, Markus Stenz, Mario Venzago or Simone Young, performing as a soloist with orchestras including Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra della svizzera
italiana, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester and Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Hamburg Philharmonic, Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester, MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Munich Chamber Orchestra or Berliner Barock Solisten.

Nils Mönkemeyer has been and will be Artist in Residence at two renowned festivals in 2021: in summer 2021 at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where he will appear in numerous orchestral and chamber music concerts as Laureate in Residence and in autumn at the Schwetzingen Festival with programmes of his own devising. In the season 2021/22 he can be heard performing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen and Kristiina Poska on a tour through BeNeLux and Estland, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and in Vienna, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, at the Schubertiade, Niedersächsische Musiktage, Heidelberger Frühling and
Mozartfest Würzburg. Further highlights of th season are concerts with Sabine Meyer and William Youn and with the Julia Fischer Quartett.

Furthermore, he is pursuing a heartfelt wish as a musician to build bridges with music by making it accessible to the disadvantaged. To this end, Nils Mönkemeyer founded the chamber music festival “Klassik für Alle” in 2016, in collaboration with the charity Caritas Bonn.

Mönkemeyer has been a professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich since 2011 - the same institution at which he himself studied with Hariolf Schlichtig. Previous tenures include a two-year professorship at the Carl Maria von Weber University of Music in Dresden, and an assistant professorship at the Reina Sofia College of Music in Madrid. Nils Mönkemeyer plays a viola made by Philipp Augustin.