Veronika Hagen

 Photo: Harald Hoffmann

Veronika Hagen is the viola player in the famous Hagen Quartet with which she has performed over the past 40 years throughout the world.

In early childhood Veronika received her first music lessons , at the age of eleven she discovered her love for the viola. Veronika went on to study at the Salzburg Mozarteum University with Helmut Zehetmair, then in Vienna and Hanover with Hatto Beyerle. Her regular collaboration with artists such as Gidon Kremer, Ivry Gitlis, Heinrich Schiff , Nikolaus Harnoncourt and György Kurtag has had a lasting influence on her playing.

Veronika Hagen also performs as a soloist in major concert halls in Europe and Japan, as well as at the Salzburg Festival, the Salzburg Mozart Week, in Vienna, Cologne, Zurich and Barcelona, at the chamber music festival in Lockenhaus, at the chamber music seminar in Prussia Cove, at the Menuhin Gstaad Festival and at the Lucerne Festival. Her chamber music partners include artists such as Mitsuko Uchida, Krystian Zimerman, Maurizio Pollini, Sabine Meyer, Jörg Widman, Sol Gabetta, Steven Isserlis, Leonidas Kavakos and Joshua Bell .

In 1998 she was commissioned by the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz to give the first performance in Germany of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Viola Concerto. She has given concerts with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Fabio Luisi, with the MDR Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony Orchesta. Her recording of the Brahms Sonatas, together with Paul Gulda was issued by Deutsche Grammophon , then , on the same label, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Alexander Dumay and the Camerata Salzburg was released.
Through many years of experience she is a sought-after chamber musician in various ensembles, from trio on to septet and octet.

And she is member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, with which she has been performing many years under Claudio Abbado, Bernhard Haitink, Andris Nelsons, Riccardo Chailly, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Paavo Järvi.

V. Hagen holds a professorship at the University Mozarteum and helds masterclasses in Paris, Madrid, Lissabon,Bern, Luzern , Leipzig, Bruxelles Verbier and the International Summer Academy Salzburg.

After having played the famous „Paganini“ - Stradivari , generously loaned by the Nippon Foundation, she now performs on a viola by J. B. Guadagnini from 1765.