Our musicians

The SchlossCapelle

The orchestra based in Eisenstadt was founded in 2006 by the violinist and composer Bernd Gradwohl, and has “played its way into the hearts of the audience with youthful passion and technical perfection” (ORF).

Its members are renowned chamber musicians and soloists from the lively Viennese scene, who not only congenially explore the masterpieces of Viennese classicism, but also vigorously pull the strings of contemporary music. The SchlossCapelle made a sensation with the works of Mozart and Haydn in SchlossEsterhazy. In addition, over the last 15 years, more than 25 commissioned works have been premiered, several of which are documented in radio recordings and CD recordings.

Fritz Kircher

Fritz Kircher was born in Klagenfurt in 1970. He received his first and most important musical training from Alfred Lösch at the Carinthian State Conservatory, followed by a six-year course of study with Ernst Kovacic and Klara Flieder. Fritz Kircher subsequently completed his studies in Stuttgart with Wilhelm Melcher, earning a soloist diploma with distinction.

He then focused intensively on building a diverse and extensive career in chamber music, playing both historical and modern instruments. In recent years alone, he has released over 25 CDs with the ensembles Ars Antiqua Austria, Collegium Wartberg, and his own Haydn Quartet. With this quartet, with whom he regularly performs in many of the most important music centers in Europe and Asia, he will be presenting his own chamber music series in the Brahms Hall of the Vienna Musikverein starting in May 2019.

His chamber music partners include Rudolf Leopold, Ariane Haering, Ernst Kovacic, Anna Magdalena Kokits, and the tenor Jan Petryka, with whom he will be making a CD recording this year of Fritz Kircher’s arrangement of “Winterreise” for string quartet and voice. His work as a soloist and concertmaster for orchestras such as recreation Graz, Tonkünstler Kammer-Orchester, Die Schloss Capelle, and janus Ensemble Wien should also be noted, as well as the violin concerto dedicated to him by Christoph Cech, which he premiered with the ensemble “die reihe” in the large broadcasting hall of the ORF. Historical instruments have a strong fascination for him – inexplicable from a physical standpoint -; he enjoys playing a violin by Camillus Camilli from 1742 in modern style, and a violin by Franz Geissenhof from Vienna in 1802 when playing historically.