Guy Braunstein

Music Committee Member

Guy Braunstein began playing the violin at the age of seven. He studied with Chaim Taub and later continued his studies in New York with Glenn Dicterow, Pinchas Zukerman, and his mentor Isaac Stern. His collaboration with Claudio Abbado was among the most important influences on his musical development.

In 2000, Mr. Braunstein became the youngest violinist in the Berlin Philharmonic’s history to be appointed concertmaster, a position in which he helped shape the orchestra for more than a decade. He later served as Artistic Director of the Rolandseck Festival and the clasclas Festival in Galicia.

A violinist, conductor, and composer, Mr. Braunstein combines virtuosity, restraint, and creativity. Although he has been described as belonging to the “tradition of the great Jewish violinists such as Mischa Elman and Isaac Stern” (The Telegraph), his approach to music is grounded not only in its history, but also in constant renewal, reinterpretation, and unexpected turns. Through demanding programs, sophisticated interpretations, and his own works and arrangements, he seeks both to engage and to challenge his audiences.

As a soloist and chamber musician, Mr. Braunstein is a regular guest at leading international concert venues and festivals. His repertoire ranges from Bach to Shostakovich, and he has performed with renowned orchestras including the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, and Berlin Philharmonic. His musical partners have included András Schiff, Zubin Mehta, Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Yefim Bronfman, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, Christoph von Dohnányi, Lang Lang, Emmanuel Ax, Andris Nelsons, and Semyon Bychkov.

Mr. Braunstein also appears internationally as a conductor. He has served as Conductor and Artist in Residence with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and Trondheim Symfoniorkester and has worked with orchestras including the Helsinki Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, and Queensland Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of the 2023–2024 season included appearances as both soloist and conductor with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Prague Chamber Soloists, and Copenhagen Phil. The programs featured his own works, including Die Nacht wird immer verklärter and the Rusalka Rhapsody, as well as violin concertos by Elgar, Delius, and Haydn.

Arranging and composing form a central part of Mr. Braunstein’s artistic identity. In the Romantic tradition of Paganini and Liszt, he transcribes musical masterpieces for his own and other instruments and ensembles, presenting operas, chamber music, and songs in new forms. His arrangements include excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Swan Lake, arias by Puccini, and Dvořák’s opera Rusalka.

In 2023, Die Nacht wird immer verklärter, his arrangement of Schoenberg’s string sextet Verklärte Nacht, received its premiere with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. Mr. Braunstein has a particular affinity for the music of the Beatles. In addition to Six Variations on “Blackbird” and arrangements of “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Something,” he composed the Abbey Road Concerto, a highly virtuosic version of the Beatles’ album Abbey Road for solo violin and orchestra.

A 2024 release on Alpha Classics, recorded with conductor Alondra de la Parra and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, featured Mr. Braunstein’s Abbey Road Concerto, Delius’s Violin Concerto, and Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. His 2019 albums Tchaikovsky Treasures, featuring Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and his own arrangements, and Old Souls, featuring arrangements of chamber works by Dvořák, Beethoven, Wolf, and Kreisler, were praised by the international press. Also acclaimed were Music of My Heart (2012), featuring works by Bloch, Chausson, Brahms, Corelli, and others, and his recording of Bruch’s Violin Concerto and Scottish Fantasy with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Ion Marin.

Guy Braunstein plays a violin made by Francesco Ruggieri in 1679.