Biography

Sophie Branson

I was born in Tokyo in 2006. My father is a British mathematician, my mother a Russian violinist.
Since the age of four, I have been studying in the violin studio of Liana Tretiakova at the Zakhar Bron School of Music in Zurich, Switzerland.

At seventeen I am a prize winner of the Astana Violin Competition in memory of David Oistrakh and have won numerous national and international competitions in Switzerland, Italy, France, and Latvia, both as a soloist, a chamber musician, and a baroque violinist.

In 2022, I debuted at the Tonhalle Zurich, performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto K.216 with the Zurich Symphony Orchestra.

I regularly take masterclasses with Prof. Zakhar Bron in Interlaken, Salzburg, and Zurich, and attend masterclasses with prominent violinists such as Maxim Vengerov, Daniel Hope, Sergei Ostrovsky and Esther Hoppe. In 2023, I received a full scholarship to take a course at the Liechtenstein Music Academy with Prof. Latica Honda Rosenberg.

At eight, I became a prize winner of the international competition “Crescendo” in Geneva. In the final round, I made my debut as a soloist with the chamber orchestra “Soloists of Neuchâtel” under the baton of Sergei Ostrovsky, performing the Bach Concerto in A-minor. That same year, I appeared as a soloist with the Pskov Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Arif Dadashev, playing concertos by Bach and Vivaldi. Since then, I have regularly appeared as a soloist with symphony and chamber orchestras in Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Paris, and London, performing concertos by Bach, Mozart, Wieniawski, and Sibelius, as well as virtuosic pieces by Wieniawski, Sarasate, and Stravinsky.

In 2018, alongside Vadim Repin, Alexander Buzlov, and Ilva Eigus, I participated in the world premiere of Daniel Schnyder’s Concerto Grosso “iGeneration” at the Trans-Siberian Art Festival and performed Stravinsky’s Italian Suite with the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. Both performances received excellent reviews in “The Strad”.

At the Menton Music Festival 2018, I performed at the Cocteau Museum as part of the “Young Artists” series.

Since 2021, I have been playing on a violin made by Stefan Peter Greiner.

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