Since his debut at the Salzburg Festival as solo partner of Sir Yehudi Menuhin in 1986, Benjamin Schmid has developed into one of the most important violinists of our time with his worldwide, always intensive concert activity in around 3000 live concerts.
Winning the Carl Flesch Competition in London in 1992, where he was also awarded the Mozart Prize, the Beethoven Prize and the Audience Prize, brought the Vienna-born violinist Benjamin Schmid his international breakthrough, along with other competition prizes.
Since then, he has performed on the world’s most important stages with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandthaus Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich.
His brilliant technique, the clarity and passion of his expression, his charisma as a soloist, the extraordinary range of his repertoire and his improvisational skills in jazz make him a violinist with a unique profile.
The violin works of W. A. Mozart are a focus of his repertoire, which has been continuously awarded prizes.
The 2024/25 CD releases include Paganini’s chamber music with guitar, Kodaly Duo with Andreas Brantelid and a Fritz Kreisler CD for his 150th anniversary, in which Benjamin Schmid also presents a modern violin concerto by Georg Breinschmid.
Some of Benjamin Schmid’s more than 60 CDs have been awarded the Opus Klassik Prize (several times), the German Record Prize (as the only violinist in the classical and jazz categories), the Echo Klassik Prize, Grammophone Editor’s Choice or the Strad Selection. Several documentary films about Benjamin Schmid, which have been broadcast worldwide, complete the violinist’s extraordinary reputation.
Benjamin Schmid is portrayed as one of the most important violinists in the book «The Great Violinists of the 20th Century» by Jean-Michel Molkou (published by Buchet-Chastel, 2014).
He performs on the «ex Viotti 1718» Stradivarius violin made available to him by the Austrian National Bank and on a modern violin made by Wiltrud Fauler in 2015.