Susanne Stanzeleit

One of the leading violinists of her generation, Susanne Stanzeleit has performed world-wide as soloist and chamber musician. She is well known for her unusually challenging and extensive repertoire, featuring many commissions and UK premières of works by composers such as Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, John Adams, Lou Harrison, György Kurtág, John Woolrich, Philip Cashian, Louis Andriessen, Anthony Payne, Rebecca Saunders and many others.

She has appeared at numerous festivals, most notably in the UK at Huddersfield Contemporary Music, Edinburgh, Dartington, Canterbury, Newbury, Swansea, York Late Music, IMS Open Chamber Music and, internationally, in Ohrid, Varna, Riga, Italy, New York State, Cyprus, Malta, Dublin, Warsaw and Barcelona New Music.

In 2010 Susanne was appointed leader of the Maggini Quartet, one of the UK’s finest and most recorded string quartets. She led the Edinburgh Quartet between 1999 and 2002 and, previously, the German-based Werethina Quartet, winner of the 1992 London International String Quartet Competition. She is in high demand as guest-leader of many of the foremost chamber orchestras, ensembles and contemporary music groups in the UK. A popular chamber musician, she has performed with eminent artists such as Gervase de Peyer, Eduard Brunner, Zara Nelsova, Colin Carr, Raphael Wallfisch, Alexander Baillie, Steven Doane, Norbert Brainin and Michael Collins, as well as regular pianist partners, Julian Jacobson and Gusztáv Fenyő. In 2003 she founded the Primrose Piano Quartet with Robin Ireland, Andrew Fuller and John Thwaites.

Susanne has broadcast for BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, German Radio and other major TV and radio stations abroad. She has received rave reviews and a Gramophone Award nomination for her long list of commercial recordings, which feature the complete works of Bartók, Enescu, Delius and Dvorák as well as Beethoven violin sonatas, works by Charles Camilleri and a series of English sonata recordings. Chamber recordings include six CDs with the Edinburgh Quartet, chamber music by Kenneth Leighton and, with the Primrose Quartet, two CDs of British piano quartets, chamber works of Richard Strauss, Brahms and Fauré, and a CD of commissions by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Dmitri Smirnov, John Casken, Piers Hellawell and Sally Beamish – all on Meridian.

Susanne Stanzeleit studied with Leonid Kogan, Nathan Milstein, Vesselin Paraschkevov, Yfrah Neaman, Sándor Végh and György Kurtág. She has taught and given masterclasses at all major UK music colleges and at many summer schools, including Dartington, Cadenza, Paxos, Ayton, Paxton. From 1993 to 2000 she was visiting lecturer of violin and chamber music at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and between 2002 and 2006 Head of Strings at the London College of Music and Media. Since 2007 she has taught at the Birmingham Conservatoire.

‘Susanne Stanzeleit’s playing is stunning…this thrilling performer sweeps you off your feet…pure magic.’
The Strad, June 2003 – CD of the month

‘Stanzeleit is, above all, a musician. Her sense of style, her dedication to the music, her absorption of a splendid technique into the essence of whatever she is playing – all these add up to an all-round equipment of formidable dimensions.’
Musical Opinion, 1994

‘Stanzeleit is both controlled and musical…beautiful palette of line…melodic and imaginative…music before any sense of personal display. Rare qualities these days!’
Classical CD, 1994