A glamorous violinist whose recitals regularly fill large concert halls, Anne-Sophie Mutter has built an international career on her rich, polished tone and confident, commanding stage persona. Born in 1963 in Rheinfelden, Germany, Mutter progressed rapidly during childhood studies with Aïda Stucki. When Herbert von Karajan heard the 13-year-old Mutter in recital at the Lucerne Festival, he took her under his wing, conducting her orchestral debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1977. For the next 13 years, she became Karajan’s go-to violinist, marked first by an album of Mozart violin concertos (Nos 3 and 5), also with the Berlin Philharmonic. As Mutter’s career took off, her programmes were unflashy, often focusing on Beethoven and Brahms, but by the 1990s and early 2000s she branched out into lighter fare by Lalo and Sarasate, a tango-flavoured recital album (2003’s Tango Song and Dance, with her longtime pianist, Lambert Orkis), and music by European Modernists. Mutter has premiered more than 30 works, including ones by Penderecki, Lutosławski, Rihm and Dutilleux, and the Violin Concerto “Anne-Sophie” (2001) by her second husband, André Previn. Breaking with her serious image, she has also championed music by film maestro John Williams, premiering his Violin Concerto No. 2 (2021). Long active in supporting charitable causes, Mutter established what is now called the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation in 1997 to help young string players with their career aspirations.