Niklas Liepe
born in 2. March 1990 in Göttingen, has been described by the press from an early age as a „soloist in a class of his own who seems to meld with his violin and captivates the audience with breath-takingly brisk, spirited but also dreamy and romantic passages“ and whose „purity and clarity of his playing, ‚sweetness‘ of the violin, and its soft and emotive tones have an enchanting effect“.

After studying at the Musical College of Hanover (Prof. Krzystof Wegrzyn) and Cologne (Prof. Zakhar Bron), the young violinist is currently furthering his studies with Prof. Ana Chumachenco and Prof. Mihaela Martin as part of the program „Master of Music in International Violin Solo Performance“ at the Kronberg Academy. He has also taken part in master classes throughout Europe and the US, with esteemed artists such as Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Andras Schiff, who can attest to a shining future for the young violinist.

As a chamber musician he performed with artists such as Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Fazil Say, Andras Schiff, Antoine Tamestit, John Holloway, Jérôme Pernoo, Mischa Maisky, Paul Meyer, Markus Becker and Nils Mönkemeyer.

Niklas has won many prizes in national and international com- petitions: he was awarded a „Next Generation“ prize from the North German Radio (Norddeutsches Rundfunk), and was also a prize-winner at the „Braunschweig Classix Festival“, the Gdansk Festival Week, the Kocian Violin Competitionin the Czech Republic, the international Da-Ponte Chamber Music Competition, twice the international Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition in Poland and in 2014 the international New Talent Competition Bratislava of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) .He is also a scholarship recipient of the Oscar and Vera Ritte Foundation Hamburg, the Jürgen-Ponto Foundation Frankfurt am Main and the Ann-Kathrin Linsenhoff Foundation.

Niklas is regularly invited to festivals such as the Dresdner Musikfest- spiele, Schwetzinger Sommer, Festival „les vacances de Monsieur Haydn“ in France, the Verbier Festival and the Sochi Winter Inter- national Arts Festival in Russia. From a very young age, Niklas has also performed as a chamber musician and as a soloist with varying orchestras, including the Braunschweig State Orchestra, the Voigt- land Philharmonic, the Brandenburg City State Orchestra Frankfurt/ Oder, the State Orchestra of Rhineland Palatinate, the Opera and Museums Orchestra Frankfurt, the Slovak Radio Symphony Orche- stra Bratislava and the Pisendel Orchestra as part of the Dresden Music Festival, with conductors such as Hartmut Haenchen, Nicolas Pasquet, John Holloway and Heribert Beisel. He has performed in prestigious venues like the Philharmonie Cologne, Philharmonie Essen, Alte Oper Frankfurt and Beethovenhouse in Bonn. wNumerous radio segments with Niklas and television documentari- es about internationally prominent violin talents (2007 broadcast on WDR, ARTE, BR television) have been produced. In April 2014, a CD with the works of Albeniz, Turina and Ginastera will be published in collaboration with SWR at the Hänssler-Classic.