Biography
Luke John Hagen (born May 8 1962 in Salzburg) is an Austrian violinist and professor.
Lukas Hagen is the eldest son of a solo viola player and concertmaster of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. While still young, like his siblings Clemens, Angela and Veronica, he was encouraged musically by his father. Hagen studied violin at the Mozarteum in Salzburg under Helmut Zehetmair; he graduated in 1983 with honours. After his studies, he received a year of private lessons with Gidon Kremer and then studied with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Walter Levin of the LaSalle String Quartet. Participation in juries at international competitions and master classes have enabled him to collaborate with artists such as Oleg Maisenberg, Heinrich Schiff, Andras Schiff and Vladimir Ashkenazy.
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As a soloist he has performed at the Salzburg Mozart Festival and the Salzburg Festival. He has become well known internationally, playing concerts in Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, the USA, Japan, Italy and Great Britain. Hagen also spent seven years as concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
Since 1999, Lukas Hagen is professor of violin and chamber music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Since 2006, he is also Vice-Rector of the University and is responsible for the coordination of artistic projects.
Together with the Hagen Quartet, which he heads as first violinist, he won several first prizes at international competitions in Portsmouth and Evian. In addition, since 1985, he has an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon.
In 2004, together with his wife, Iris, he founded Lukas Hagen the folk and chamber music festival "Hagen Open Festival" at the Feistritz castle near Vienna.
Lukas Hagen plays both the ex Rewark violin of 1724 by Antonio Stradivari from the collection of the Austrian National Bank as well as modern instruments from the workshop of Stefan-Peter Greiner.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.