Michaela Paetsch

Michaela Paetsch Neftel
Michaela and her violin
Background information
Birth name	Michaela Modjeska Paetsch
Born	November 12, 1961 (1961-11-12) (age 49)
Origin	Colorado Springs, CO, U.S.
Genres	Classical music
Occupations	Concert Violinist
Instruments	Violin
Years active	1971-

Michaela Paetsch Neftel (November 12, 1961) is an American violinist who was born in Colorado Springs. She is known for being the first female in the world to have recorded all 24 Paganini Caprices for solo violin.

Early life

Michaela Paetsch was raised in a large musical family - with parents (Gunther and Priscilla), two sisters (Phebe and Brigitte) and four brothers (Johann, Christian, Engelbert and Siegmund) - in Colorado Springs. She studied first with her parents since the age of three with Priscilla and Gunther Paetsch, then with Ivan Galamian at Meadowmount and later with Szymon Goldberg at Yale University and at the Curtis Institute of Music.

Musical career

She made her debut as a soloist at the age of eleven with the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto. Since then, she has been performing as soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician in the major musical centres of the world, including New York's Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, the Library of Congress in Washington. She has also played in major festivals such as the Marlboro, Tokyo, Davos, Berlin (Brandenburg Summer Concerts), Banff, Boulder, and "Mostly Mozart" in New York.

She has been invited as soloist with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonics of Osaka, Japan, Seoul, Liège and Bergen; the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the Residentie Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and the BBC Symphony, among others. She has performed under such conductors as Kent Nagano, Dimitrij Kitajenko, Horst Stein and Myung-Whun Chung.

As a soloist of international repute she has performed in concert with, among others, the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig Germany, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the Hallé Orchestra Manchester, La Suisse Romande and Montreal.^[1]

Prizes

She has won numerous awards, including first prize in the G.B. Dealey International Competition in Dallas and top prizes in the Queen Elisabeth and the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competitions.

Discography

Her extensive discography includes:

• The 24 Caprices by Niccolò Paganini with Teldec.
• She has also recorded with Sony Classical, Arte Nova (BMG) and Tudor.
• Her recent disc of the Concertos by Joachim Raff with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra (TUDOR 7086).^[2]
• The complete music for solo strings of Daron Hagen for Arsis.
• ensemble incanto - string quartet

Since 1993 Michaela Paetsch is the violinist of the quartet "ensemble incanto" with which she tours extensively and records regularly. She lives in Bern, Switzerland.

References

1. ^ A short Bio of Michaela Paetsch
2. ^ Bio from the Queen Elisabeth International Competition

Persondata
Name	Paetsch, Michaela
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	November 12, 1961
Place of birth
Date of death
Place of death