Muriel Razavi, viola

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American/Iranian Violist Muriel Razavi was a student of Prof. Tabea Zimmermann from 2012-2017. Further teachers include Prof. Nils Mönkemeyer in Munich and Prof. Tatjana Masurenko in Leipzig. She is currently finishing her Postgraduate Degree with Prof. Wilfried Strehle in Berlin. From 2016-2018 she studied the baroque Viola and historically informed performance practice in the two-year Academy of the Chamber Orchestra “Balthasar Neumann Ensemble” with Thomas Hengelbrock. She is an active member of the West Eastern Divan Orchestra of Maestro Daniel Barenboim and of the Chamber Orchestra “Le Concert Olympique” of Jan Caeyers. In 2018 she won 1st Prize at the International Washington String Competition in the USA. She is also Prizewinner of the International “Michael Spisak” Competition in Poland (2017) and of the International Music Competition “Città di Cremona” from the International Viola Society in Italy (2016). She gained many musical impulses at international master classes while working with renowned musicians such as Rainer Kussmaul, Hatto Beyerle Wolfram Christ, Nobuko Imai and Jean Sulem. She has been invited to play chamber music at various international music festivals such as the “Semanas Musicales de Frutillar” in Chile, where she also gave a masterclass. She was invited to the “International Seiji Ozawa Academy Switzerland and joined the “International Zermatt Festival Academy” with the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Muriel was a recipient of the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation, Hamburg and of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben Hamburg. She recorded for Sony Classical with the “Metamorphosen” Chamber Orchestra and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. Muriel plays a modern instrument from Patrick Robin, Angers 2015 and a baroque Viola from Dorothea van der Woerd after an Alemannic model from the 17th century. She also holds a Bachelor Degree from the “Freie Universität Berlin” in “History and Culture of the Middle East – Iranian Studies” and a Masters Degree of the “Humboldt Universität zu Berlin” in “Religion and Culture”.