Violinist
Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay has quickly risen to the position of concertmaster in several European orchestras, including London's venerable
Philharmonia Orchestra. He has also had significant careers as a soloist and chamber musician.
Visontay was born in 1983 and grew up in Magdeburg, in what was then East Germany. His mother was a pianist, his father a pianist and conductor, and his brother a cellist, so music came naturally to him. A notable feature of his training is that he has only had two teachers, both in eastern Germany: first during a long period at a Magdeburg boarding school and then in the city of Weimar. He held concertmaster positions in regional German orchestras beginning at about age 20, and his prodigy status was cemented when he became concertmaster of the
European Union Youth Orchestra in 2005. There he worked under some of the most renowned conductors in the world, including
Colin Davis,
Bernard Haitink, and
Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Visontay has also performed in concertmaster positions with a variety of other ensembles, including the
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the
London Symphony Orchestra, the
Academy of St.-Martin-in-the-Fields, and the
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2007, aged 24, he was named joint concertmaster of the
Philharmonia Orchestra, and he has continued in the position of concertmaster under the
Philharmonia's new conductor,
Esa-Pekka Salonen, since the beginning of
Salonen's tenure in the 2008-2009 season.
Visontay has performed chamber music with top musicians, including in recordings of the
Rachmaninov and
Shostakovich piano trios with
Ashkenazy and
Mats Lidström. With the
Philharmonia he has increasingly been featured as a soloist, including two performances of
Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending and a recording of the Violin Concerto of
John Jeffreys. In 2018,
Visontay was featured with pianist
Min-Jung Kym in a recording of
Mendelssohn's rarely performed Double Concerto in D minor.