Hilary Hahn

Violin

Biography

Three-time Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn melds expressive musicality and technical expertise with a diverse repertoire guided by artistic curiosity. Her barrier-breaking attitude towards classical music and her commitment to sharing her experiences with a global community have made her a fan favorite. Hahn is a prolific recording artist and commissioner of new works, and her 22 feature recordings have received every critical prize in the international press. She is Co-Founder and VP of Artistic Partnerships of the AI-music initiative Deepmusic.AI.

Hahn is currently in the midst of her second year as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever Artist-in-Residence, and is Artist-in-Residence at London’s Wigmore Hall. This season, Hahn performs Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the Orchestre National de Belgique and the Seattle Symphony, and on tour with Mikko Franck and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Hahn joins the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in performances of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, which she also brings to the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra—both in Helsinki and on tour in Germany—as well as the Vancouver and New Jersey Symphony Orchestras.

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Reviews

“I cannot think of a single performer who begins to compare with Hilary Hahn. This is quite simply magnificent violin-playing”

Rob Cowan

Gramophone Magazine

“Hilary Hahn was and is the epitome of violinist perfection.”

Egon Bezold

Nürnberger Nachrichten

More Reviews

“Hahn conjured into being a cathedral of sound: spacious and full of dazzling beauty.”

Simon Chin, Washington Post October 2018

“Nothing [Hahn] does is for show. Technique, feelings, heart and mind are intuitively fused, as Bach always demands”

Geoff Brown, The Times October 2018

“Hahn went well beyond her customary excellent intonation and exceptional technique to present something brimming with emotion and enthusiasm, excitement and interpretive imagination.”

Rob Hubbard, Pioneer Press February 18th 2016

“[Hahn} removes the gravity and lets the song of her violin climb to dizzying heights with perfect beauty and gives this done-to-death piece a soul, as if it is being heard for the first time.”

Christiane Peitz, Der Tagesspiegel 

“because there is a category that stands above all others: the sheer musicality and musical passion of this violinist.”

Helmut Mauro, Süddeutsche Zeitung 

“Let’s simply say, she does everything right – just right. This becomes most evident whilst playing alone as with the Johann Sebastian Bach, whose Partita No.3 for violin solo was never played better in violin history even by the grand masters – indeed Hilary rather surpasses them through the naturalness of her music-making.”

Michael Bastian Weiß, Abendzeitung 

“The Vieuxtemps [Fourth Violin Concerto] … is remarkable, with Hahn playing the role of melodramatic protagonist to perfection; she has a powerful presence and, in the finale, finds a truly heroic tone.”

Duncan Druce, Gramophone 

“Her playing was at once impetuous and authoritative, brilliant and beautiful.”

Anthony Tommasini, New York Times 

“Hahn proved once again […] that she is one of the great Schoenberg interpreters of our time”

Jutta Rinas, Hannoversche Allgemeine 

“Hilary Hahn is and remains a phenomenon.”

Felix Stephan, Berliner Morgenpost 

“This diverse collection of miniatures represents the fruit of Hahn’s ambitious commissioning project… Hahn was already a well-established virtuoso. This project marks her evolution as something far more interesting: a creative force.”

Jeremy Eichler, Boston Globe 

“Individually, the pieces represent an admirable span of ages, nationalities and styles, with veteran creators like Einojuhani Rautavaara and Valentin Silvestrov placed alongside contemporary concert-world stars — Jennifer Higdon, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Nico Muhly — and emerging artists. What impresse[s] most… [is] how well the package coheres — a matter of Ms. Hahn’s smart pacing — and how deftly Ms. Hahn negotiated constant shifts among disparate techniques and moods.”

Steve Smith, New York Times 

“At 33, [Hahn] sits atop the pantheon of stellar violinists.”

Tom Aldridge, NUVO 

“Throughout, Hahn was an unflappably confident advocate. The core of her technique is precision and refinement — elegant sound; frictionless, clean bowing and intonation; polished, rounded-off phrasing.”

Matthew Guerrieri, The Boston Globe 

“She deserved the ovation. Her performance began inauspiciously, with an authority that felt cool, even chilly. But as Bach’s lines wove together, her playing gradually deepened into something intense, adventurous and affecting. It was a microcosm of Ms. Hahn’s career. Born in 1979, she started out as a prodigy of rare clarity and virtuosity and has developed into a daring, mature artist eager for new collaborations and repertory.”

Zachary Woolfe, New York Times