Christa-Maria Stangorra - Violinist

German-Latvian violinist Christa-Maria Stangorra received her first lessons at the age of four, later studying in London (Berent Korfker), Hamburg (Prof. Tanja Becker-Bender), Sion and Florence (Pavel Vernikov) and graduating with top marks from the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin in 2022 under Ning Feng. In 2021, she was accepted into the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, and a year later she was offered a permanent position in the same orchestra in the second violins. At the beginning of the 2024/25 season, she moved to the first violins of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra.

She attended masterclasses with Daniel Barenboim (WEDO chamber music project), Latica Honda-Rosenberg, Igor Ozim and Vadim Gluzman, among others. In September 2018, hrista-Maria was a guest academician at the Zermatt Music Festival of the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic. Her awards include 1st prize at Jugend Musiziert 2013 (violin solo) with the WESPE special prize, 1st prize at the nationwide university competition of the Peter Pirazzi Foundation in Frankfurt, 1st prize at the Elise Meyer Competition in Hamburg, the ‘GWK Music Prize 2014’ of the Society for the Promotion of Westphalian Cultural Work in Münster, 3rd prize at the International Queen Sophie Charlotte Competition in Mirow and the Youth Promotion Prize at the International Violin Competition ‘Leopold Mozart’ in Augsburg. The 10th International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition Hannover 2018 awarded her a scholarship and presented her in its concert series ‘zu Gast in Niedersachsen’ (Guest in Lower Saxony). In 2016, she was accepted into the ‘Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz’ foundation and as a member of the ‘LGT Young Soloists’, whose concert tours took her to venues in Hong Kong, Paris, Tel Aviv, Singapore (Victoria Hall), the Tonhalle Zurich and the Rheingau Music Festival, among others. A CD featuring Scandinavian works was released in spring 2018 by Sony/RCA Red Seal. In January 2019, she made another CD recording with the LGT Young Soloists, including video production by Bayerischer Rundfunk.

The long-standing scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation has performed several times at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Ateneo Madrid and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival (including as a soloist with the North German Philharmonic Orchestra Rostock and the Polish Chamber Philharmonic Sopot). As an Irino Prize winner, she gave several concerts in Tokyo, Japan, in 2014. A year later, she made her debut with the Asian Chamber Orchestra in Hong Kong. At international chamber music festivals such as the Thy Chamber Music Festival (Denmark) and the Clasclas Festival Vilagarcia (Spain), she performed alongside renowned artists such as Máté Szücs, Guy Braunstein, Alena Baeva and Vadim Kholodenko. Highlights of recent seasons include engagements with the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn (Germany tour) and her debut with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra Bratislava at the KKL Luzern.

At the 26th competition of the German Musical Instruments Fund (2018), Christa-Maria Stangorra won a violin by Giovanni Francesco Pressenda from 1823, owned by the Federal Republic of Germany. She plays on ‘Evah Pirazzi Gold’ strings, kindly provided by Pirastro GmbH.