Biography
Helena Winkelman, born 1974 in Schaffhausen, is one of the most promising young Swiss violinists and composers. Besides of her activity as a recitalist with a repertoire of over 270 major works, she composes and often performs her own music. .
In 1997 she won the first prize at the International Andrea Postaccini Violin Competition in Italy. Other prizes include the Walther Bringolf Award and a Chamber Music Award from the "Music Academy of Heidelberg - Mannheim" and in 2001 the International Pro Musicis Award in Paris. Subsequently she was invited to give debuts at the Salle Cortot in Paris, Pickman Hall, Boston and Carnegie's Weill Recital Hall, New York.
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As a soloist Helena Winkelman played with different Orchestras in Switzerland, Germany and Rumania and recorded for SDR Stuttgart, Germany (Radio and Television), DRS II and Radio WBGH Boston.
Since 1996 she is a regular guest at the international chamber music festival "IMS Prussia Cove", in England and from 2001 until 2004 she has been invited to participate in the International Music Festival "Young artists in concert", Davos, Switzerland. In 2003 she performed at the International Music Festival of Lucerne with Thomas Demenga, in 2011 she was invited to the Swedish Bastad Festival. In January 2002 she joined the Camerata variabile Basel, a prestigious Swiss chamber ensemble as their first violinist and one year later she became part of the artistic committee of the group. Since 2011 she is now the artistic leader and responsible for the programming. She is a founding member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado and in 2003 founded the Avantgarde - Rockgroup "The Avalon String Ensemble" for which she also writes all the music. n 2008 she was offered by the foundation Landisand Gyr to stay for a year in London to further enlarge her artistic horizon and work on her compositions exclusively.
Further scholarships she received from the Friedl - Wald foundation (1992) and the Migros - Genossenschaftsbund and Goehner foundation Switzerland. (1996/97) She also received a grant by the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in 1997. Two times she has received a grant by the KulturRaumSchaffhausen.
Helena Winkelman started to play violin and piano at the age of five. She studied with Herbert Scherz and Gunars Larsens in Lucerne, Valery Gradow in Mannheim, Daniel Phillips in New York and Thomas Füri in Basel. Afterwards she studied composition (2004-2007) with Roland Moser and Georg Friedrich Haas (2007-2008) at the music academy Basle. She participated in masterclasses with Gidon Kremer, Hansheinz Schneeberger, Franco Gulli, Gerhard Schulz and György Kurtag.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.