Julia Hagen
Naturalness and warmth, vitality and the courage to take risks: such advantages are regularly mentioned when talking about Julia Hagen’s game. The young cellist from Salzburg, scion of a musical family, convinces as a soloist with orchestra as well as in recital with piano or in numerous chamber music constellations alongside prominent partners. The 27-year-old, who now lives in Vienna, combines technical sovereignty with high artistic standards and a directly communicative attitude towards music-making.
Highlights of the 2022/23 season include Julia Hagen’s return to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla with Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2 at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, performances of the Dvořák Cello Concerto with the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana and the Prague Symphony Orchestra, as well as guest appearances with the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the Sofia Philharmonic. The North American debut is also planned with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Julia Hagen will be heard at the Salzburg Festival 2023 with Sofia Gubaidulina’s “Sonnengesang” as part of the Ouverture spiritual.
Among the diverse chamber music activities are concerts in the trio with Igor Levit and Johan Dalene in London’s Wigmore Hall and at the Heidelberger Frühling, appearances with the Quatuor Arod and the Hagen Quartet and a tour of Japan in the cello duo with Clemens Hagen. The young cellist has longer stays at the Rügen Festival, the Aix-en-Provence Chamber Music Festival, the Risør Festival and Leif Ove Andsnes’ Rosendal Festival in Norway. Julia Hagen also works regularly with the Capuçon brothers. Renaud Capuçon is conductor and violin soloist of the Orchester de Chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine on tour with Beethoven’s Triple Concerto; she met Gautier at concerts with his “Capucelli” ensemble in Dortmund and Geneva.
Julia Hagen started playing the cello at the age of five. Training with Enrico Bronzi in Salzburg and with Reinhard Latzko in Vienna was followed by formative years in Heinrich Schiff’s class in Vienna from 2013 to 2015 and finally studies with Jens Peter Maintz at the University of the Arts in Berlin. As a Kronberg Academy scholarship holder, Hagen also studied with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt until 2022. She was a prizewinner at the International Cello Competition in Liezen and the Mazzacurati Cello Competition and was awarded the Hajek Boss Wagner Culture Prize and the Nicolas Firmenich Prize from the Verbier Festival Academy as the best young cellist.
In 2019, together with Annika Treutler, she released her first album with the two cello sonatas by Johannes Brahms on Hänssler Classic. Julia Hagen plays an instrument by Francesco Ruggieri (Cremona, 1684), which is privately made available to her.