Burkhard Sigl

Burkhard Sigl, born in Burghausen in 1966 as the second of four children in a family of musicians, began playing the violin at the age of five. He took his first violin lessons from his mother and piano lessons from his father. He received early musical education at the Orff Institute in Salzburg. Whilst attending the St. Stephan Music Grammar School in Augsburg – where, as a member of the school’s award-winning choir, he became familiar with major works (such as Bach’s St Matthew Passion) at an early age – he also studied at the local conservatoire under, amongst others, Walter Dorr and Lydia Dubravskaja.

He undertook his viola studies at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Jürgen Geise and later graduated with distinction from Thomas Riebl’s class. He subsequently took up a teaching post for viola at the same conservatoire. There, from 1991 to 1996, he taught Thomas Riebl’s viola class as his assistant. Numerous masterclasses with, amongst others, Tabea Zimmermann, Kim Kashkashian, Yuri Bashmet, Sándor Végh and Wolfram Christ, as well as chamber music training with renowned musicians such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, György Kurtág and members of the Amadeus, LaSalle and Hagen Quartets, complemented his artistic development.

Among the ensembles in which he has performed, particular mention should be made of the Stradivari Sextet, founded in Vienna, as a member of which he was loaned the famous Mahler Stradivarius; the Sigl Trio; the Stadler Quartet, which specialises in contemporary music; the Giovanni Quartet, founded in Hamburg in 2000, and the Tertis Viola Ensemble, which has been in existence since 2008. His chamber music partners include, amongst others, Alexander Lonquich, Jörg Demus, Angela Hewitt, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Martin Lovett, Heidi Litschauer, Daniel Müller-Schott, Maria Graf, Irina Grafenauer, Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici and Michael Martin Kofler. As a soloist, Burkhard Sigl has performed with renowned orchestras in Germany, Austria and Japan (e.g. solo concertos by Telemann, Stamitz, Walton and Hindemith, Mozart’s ‘Concertante’, Bruch’s Double Concerto and Romance).

He was particularly and lastingly influenced by his work with Sándor Végh during his long-standing membership of the Salzburger Camerata academica. In 1998, he took up a post with the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was given the opportunity to familiarise himself with a large part of the operatic repertoire. In 2001, he moved to the Munich Philharmonic, where he has served as deputy principal violist since June 2004. He also supervised the orchestra academy for many years, preparing young musicians for auditions; many of them subsequently joined renowned orchestras.

During the 2012 summer term, he taught Prof. Andra Darzins’s viola class at the Stuttgart University of Music. His greatest passion remains chamber music, and as a member of various ensembles ranging from trios to octets, Burkhard Sigl performs in many countries around the world. Burkhard Sigl plays a viola made by the Venetian master Anselmo Bellosio in 1780.

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