Ursina Braun, violoncello
The musician, born in Zurich in 1992, lives out her intensely personal approach to music in the world of composition, which she discovered for herself at the age of 14. Much earlier she decided on her instrument, the violoncello, with which she has won numerous international prizes. Stylistically, she can do everything - from baroque to modern.
About the artist
AWARD-WINNING CELLIST WITH HANDWRITING AND VISION
The cellist and composer Ursina Maria Braun is one of a breed of young musicians who devote themselves utterly – and with a complete absence of vanity – to a wide range of creative projects. In her case, this includes the playing both the modern and baroque cello and performing as a soloist with an orchestra and as a chamber musician, as principal cellist or tutti player in an orchestra, and as a composer.
Ursina Maria Braun is a remarkably expressive musician who is well versed in music history as well as being a free spirit, especially when it comes to composing. Ursina Maria Braun has performed as a soloist and chamber musicians at the Leipzig Bach Festival, the Thüringer Bachwochen, the Styriarte in Graz, the Carinthian Summer festival and the Suoni delle Dolomiti among many others.
She has forthcoming concerts in Milan, Florence, Vienna and Zurich, to name but a few. Ursina Maria Braun plays regularly with the Concentus Musicus Wien and the Vienna-based Ensemble Prisma and as an occasional guest with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and, more recently, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
The project closest to her heart is Spira Mirabilis, with which she performs as an inspirational principal and chamber musician at prominent venues such as La Scala in Milan, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Aldeburgh Festival, Naples, Florence, Paris, Barcelona, Bremen and Hamburg.
Ursina Maria Braun studied with Thomas Grossenbacher, Clemens Hagen and Heinrich Schiff, completing her M.A. in 2019 in Salzburg under Clemens Hagen’s supervision. She has pursued her studies in the fields of historically informed performance with Reinhard Goebel in Salzburg and Kristin von der Goltz in Munich. While still a student, Ursina Maria Braun carried off first prize in the international Concorso Enrico Mainardi in Salzburg (2012).
She was runner-up in the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig (2016) as well as the audience prize. After winning several prizes for her compositions at Swiss youth music competitions, Ursina Maria Braun’s work Das etwas andere Schlaraffenland (“An Unusual Land of Cockaigne”) was first performed by the twelve cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic at the Berliner Philharmonie. This was followed by further commissions from the Musikkollegium Winterthur (a work for orchestra as well as a string quartet first performed in autumn 2019), for soloists of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and for an ensemble from Salzburg’s Mozarteum Orchestra.
