Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay

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. ~ James Manheim