Anne-Sophie Mutter has been one of the great violin virtuosos of our time for five decades. Born in Rheinfelden in Baden, she received her first violin lessons at the age of five; she later studied with Aida Stucki at the Winterthur Conservatory. She began her extraordinary career in 1976 at the Lucerne Festival; a year later, she appeared as a soloist at the Salzburg Whitsun Concerts under the direction of Herbert von Karajan. Since then, she has performed worldwide in all the major musical centres and, alongside the classical repertoire, repeatedly presents new works: Anne-Sophie Mutter has given the world premieres of a total of 34 works, as well as numerous arrangements written especially for her, including compositions by Thomas Adès, Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutosławski, Krzysztof Penderecki, André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann and John Williams. She deliberately uses her popularity for charitable projects and to support outstanding young musical talent: in 2008, the support association founded as early as 1997 was expanded to include the "Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation"; she regularly performs with her scholarship-holder ensemble "Mutter's Virtuosi" all over the world. In 2026, Anne-Sophie Mutter celebrates her 50th anniversary on stage – an occasion for residencies at institutions such as the Lucerne Festival and the Musikverein in Vienna, as well as for tours through Europe, North America and Asia. Among the numerous honours bestowed upon Anne-Sophie Mutter are the "Ernst von Siemens Music Prize" and the Leipzig Mendelssohn Prize, the "Praemium Imperiale" and the Polar Music Prize. She has received the coveted "Grammy" four times, the "ECHO Klassik" nine times and the "Opus Klassik" twice. She is a recipient of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Legion of Honour, the Bavarian Order of Merit and the Grand Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria. In 2013, she was elected an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2015 appointed an Honorary Fellow of Keble College at the University of Oxford; most recently, in 2025, the state of Baden-Württemberg honoured her with the Grand Staufer Medal in Gold.
