Sophie Heinrich has won the audition for the position of First Concertmaster of the Wiener Symphoniker. The vacancy arises from the retirement of Florian Zwiauer in May 2019.

“A dream comes true”,

Heinrich said. “I look forward to Vienna, to the new exciting assignment with the Wiener Symphoniker, and, in particular, playing together with my new colleagues and the collaboration with Philippe Jordan and Andrés Orozco-Estrada.”

Philippe Jordan, Music Director of the Wiener Symphoniker, stated: “I first met and came to appreciate Sophie Heinrich as a very competent and committed musician with strong leadership qualities during a new production of Arabella at the Bayrischen Staatsoper in 2015. I am very pleased she is going to enrich the Wiener Symphoniker with her exceptional and natural musicality and personality in the near future.”

Orchestra Work Council Member Thomas Schindl added: “Sophie Heinrich is an outstanding and captivating musician and also an experienced and uniting true leader. She already impressed the Orchestra at a first common concert in 2016 with her first-class expertise as a violinist and her musical empathy. We look very much forward to our future cooperation and to playing together.”

“I am very happy about this decision”, Johannes Neubert, Intendant of the Wiener Symphoniker, commented. “I am convinced Sophie Heinrich will bring along everything that is needed to crucially and successfully shape the future artistic development of the Wiener Symphoniker.”

Sophie Heinrich - Winner and awardee of several international competitions.
Sophie Heinrich was born in Augsburg; she started playing the violin at the age of four and has been on stage ever since. Important teachers during her studies were Antje Weithaas of the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin, and Thomas Brandis at the Lübeck Academy of Music, where she completed her postgraduate studies in the soloist class with top marks. Further musical inspirations were provided by Gidon Kremer, Midori, Isabelle van Keulen, Reinhard Goebel, and the Artemis Quartet. She is the winner and awardee of several international competitions. In 2008, she won the Possehl Music Award of the Hanseatic Town of Lübeck. She received scholarships from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, the German Music Life Foundation, the ZEIT Foundation, and was also sponsored by the Yehudi Menuhin Organisation – Live Music Now Germany.

She has appeared as a soloist at festivals at home and abroad and also given concerts with, inter alia, the Symphoniker Hamburg and the Münchner Kammerorchester. Recordings were made for radio and television, including Deutschlandfunk, BR, arte, and ZDF. As an avid chamber musician, she has played in various formations and also, for many years, in the ensemble “Cuarteto Sol Tango” (CD “Cristal” in AVI format). Between 2006 and 2017, Sophie Heinrich was engaged as a lecturer with a violin teaching assignment at the Lübeck Academy of Music. In addition, she conducted various chamber music courses and since 2018 has been artistic director of “Konzerte am Waldsee” in the German Wendland region. Sophie Heinrich is First Concertmaster of the Komische Oper Berlin and in this position has been much in demand by various chamber orchestras as well as symphony and opera orchestras, including the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Bayerische Staatsoper, the DSO Berlin, the Sächsischen Staatskappelle Dresden, and the Bayrischen Kammerphilharmonie.