Swiss violinist Sebastian Bohren has forged a distinctive career as a first-rate soloist, empathetic chamber musician and collaborator, acclaimed recording artist and inspired entrepreneur. With a wide-ranging repertoire that spans the Classical era to the present day, he has been praised for his “bravura playing” (The Sunday Times) and interpretations imbued with “charm and elegance” (The Strad). Gramophone magazine has described “a listening experience that commands the attention from start to finish”, summoning, “Which way will Sebastian Bohren’s questing approach to repertoire take him next?”
Sebastian Bohren's 2025-26 season highlights include the opening of the Brugg Festival performing Barber’s Violin Concerto with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milan conducted by Emmanuel Tjeknavorian; Robert Schumann's Violin Concerto on tour with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and conductor Enrico Onofri; Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken-Kaiserslautern and Christoph Eschenbach; and his debut in Milan with Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano under the baton of Jac van Steen, performing Henri Dutilleux's violin concerto "L'arbre des songes". Bohren will also make his debut in the Great Hall of the Berlin Philharmonic with the Deutsches Kammerorchester Berlin performing his own adaptation for violin of Schumann's Cello Concerto, and give his first performances of György Ligeti's Violin Concerto with the Bodensee Philharmonie, in collaboration with conductor Samuel Lee. Bohren will continue his successful collaboration with Sergei Bolkhovets, this time with the Svenska Kammerorkestern, performing and recording (for AVIE Records) violin concertos by Magnus Lindberg and Samuel Barber. In addition, Bohren will return to the Vienna Konzerthaus in November 2025, with conductor Jan Willem de Vriend and the Vienna Chamber Orchestra; and will perform Leonard Bernstein's Serenade with the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim.
Previous highlights include return engagements with Daniel Hope and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra; and tours with Heinz Holliger and the Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur, and Jonathan Bloxham and the London Mozart Players. Concerto appearances include Mendelssohn and Szymanowski with Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; Beethoven with Michael Sanderling and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra; Mendelssohn and Eötvös with Ivor Bolton and Sinfonieorchester Basel; Bartok with Heinz Holliger and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana; Lindberg and Vasks with Thierry Fischer and the Munich Chamber Orchestra; Mozart with Marc Minkowski and the Basel Chamber Orchestra; and Berg with Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and Otto Tausk. He has also collaborated with conductors, Elim Chan, James Gaffigan, Mario Venzago, Cristian Macelaru and Christoph Poppen.
Sebastian Bohren’s passion for music of the 20th and 21st centuries is reflected in several future concerto projects, including a tour with Heinz Holliger and Kremerata Baltica performing Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Concerto funebre; Dieter Ammann’s Violin Concerto with Thomas Zehetmair and the Orchestra d’Auvergne; a new Violin Concerto by Swiss composer Martin Wettstein; and the commission of a double concerto by Thomas Demenga, to be premiered alonside Daniel Hope with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.
Sebastian Bohren’s chamber music credentials include membership in the Stradivari Quartet for seven years (2013 – 2020), performing internationally in such venues as the Berlin Philharmonie, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing and Victoria Hall in Singapore. In recital, his collaborators have included pianists Andreas Haefliger, Yekwon Sunwoo and Claire Huangci; clarinettist Reto Bieri; saxophonist Valentine Michaud; violinists Hansheinz Schneeberger, Isabelle van Keulen, Josef Spacek, Daniel Hope and Dmitri Sitkovetsky; violist Antoine Tamestit; and cellists Thomas Demenga, Anastasia Kobekina and Christian Poltera.
Sebastian Bohren’s distinguished discography embraces classic concertos, innovative arrangements and world-premieres. His most recent release, on AVIE Records, pairs the premiere recording of Latvian composer Peteris Vasks’ second violin concerto, “In Evening Light”, with an orchestration of Schubert’s virtuosic Rondeau brilliant. Also on AVIE is a pair of Mozart concertos, with Gabor Takacs-Nagy conducting the Swiss-based CHAARTS Ensemble. For RCA Red Seal, Sebastian has recorded the concertos of Beethoven, Britten, Mendelssohn, and Karl Amadeus Hartmann; and for Sony Classical, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata in an arrangement by Andrei Pushkarev for violin, string orchestra and percussion.
In 2023, Sebastian Bohren established the Swiss-based Brugg Festival, an annual week-long gathering in the autumn that hosts a variety of international musicians and offers a robust educational element, “echo”, that attracts over 1,000 school children from diverse backgrounds. Sebastian is also the artistic director of Stretta Concerts, a year-long series of concerts featuring soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras from throughout Europe. Most recently, Sebastian established Eniteo Arts Management, a boutique agency that organizes and manages orchestral tours from its base in Switzerland, with an international reach in collaboration with selected partners.
Sebastian plays a 1761 violin made in Parma by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, the “Ex-Wanamaker-Hart”.
SebastianBohren
Auditorium of Milan
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