Birgit Erz Violine

For Birgit Erz, music has always been about making music together, communicating and sharing with others. Born in Heilbronn, she received her first violin lessons there at the Municipal Music School with George Moradian. Her training was also influenced by Conrad von der Goltz, Petru Munteanu, Valery Gradow, Roman Nodel and Antje Weithaas.

She received further artistic impulses in master classes with Roman Totenberg, Ruggiero Ricci, Rainer Kussmaul, Tibor Varga and Ida Haendel. She played in a wide variety of ensembles and had a permanent horn trio, a string quartet and a recorder trio for several years in her youth. With these chamber ensembles, and as a soloist and piano accompanist, she won numerous prizes at Jugend musiziert.Triggered by rehearsing a work by the composer Kazimierz Serocki at the age of ten, her passion for contemporary music developed alongside her enthusiasm for chamber music. 

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A few years later, her teacher Valery Gradow recommended that she study literature and art of the same period in parallel to music, especially for her approach to contemporary pieces of music. Through this holistic approach, Birgit Erz´s involvement with new music remained so exciting that in 2002 she participated as a violinist in the Premio Valentino Bucchi di Roma Internazionale competition for 20th century music and won 2nd prize. At the Mendelssohn Competition for Composition Berlin, she was awarded a special prize for the best interpretation.