Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover

Violinist Ulf Schneider, originally from Braunschweig, studied at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media (HMTMH), at the Juilliard School in New York and at the Berlin University of the Arts with Jens Ellermann, Felix Galimir, Masao Kawasaki and Thomas Zehetmair.

While still a student, he founded the piano trio Trio Jean Paul with Martin Löhr and Eckart Heiligers, which still performs today with the same line-up. The ensemble was supported by Hatto Beyerle, Eberhard Feltz, Roger Norrington and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

With Trio Jean Paul, Ulf Schneider won first prizes and numerous special prizes at the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition (1993), the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition (1995) and the German Music Competition (1995). He was also a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation and was awarded first prize at the University Competition in Berlin (1994) and the Kassel Art Prize (1996).

His solo and chamber music concert activities developed in duos and trios, in the Zehetmair Quartet and later also in the Bartholdy Quintet, founded in 2009. At the same time, Ulf Schneider developed a special passion for teaching. He initially worked as a lecturer at the Music Academy in Kassel, later becoming a professor at the University of Music in Detmold and, in 2001, at HMTMH. 

He is regularly invited to give masterclasses and serve as a juror at competitions such as Joseph Joachim in Hanover, Spohr in Weimar, Postacchini in Fermo and Max Rostal in Berlin.

His students are prize winners of national and international competitions, members of well-known symphony and opera orchestras, lecturers and professors at music academies, and chamber musicians in renowned ensembles.

As a soloist and with the Trio Jean Paul, he has performed with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Southwest German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim, the Orchestra I Pomeriggi Musicali Milano, the Presidential Orchestra Ankara, the North Bohemian Philharmonic Teplice, the Chamber Orchestra Musica Viva Moscow, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Anhalt Philharmonic Dessau, Southwest German Philharmonic Konstanz and the Prague National Theatre Orchestra under the baton of Erich Bergel, Golo Berg, Jörg Faerber, David Fernanéz-Caravaca, Christian Fitzner, Christian Hammer, Gérard Korsten, Peter Kuhn, Benjamin Lack, Antonello Manacorda, Charles Olivieri-Munroe, Eiji Oue, George Hanson, Gerard Oskamp, Alexander Rudin, Petri Sakari, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Gerd Schaller, Marc Soustrot, Jaap van Zweden, Sylvain Cambreling and Thomas Zehetmair.

Concerts have taken him regularly to renowned concert halls such as the Berlin and Cologne Philharmonic Halls, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Wigmore Hall in London, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Sydney Opera House, Izumi Hall in Osaka, Casals Hall in Tokyo,  the Konzerthaus in Dortmund and Berlin, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Palais Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. He is a welcome guest at many festivals, such as the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Musikfest Berlin, the Mozartfest Würzburg, the Festspiele Baden-Baden, the Ludwigsburger Festspiele, the Fredener Musiktagen, the Moselfestival, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Kissinger Sommer, the Stuttgarter Musikfest, the Edinburgh Festival, the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg.

With a thirst for discovery, he continually devotes himself to new ideas and programmes beyond the well-trodden paths of the repertoire, as well as thematically designed projects in which music and literature interact in a special way. His musical partners here include Stephan Imorde, Jan Philip Schulze, Yasuko Nunomura, Leonid Gorokhov, and the actors Sonja Beißwenger, Martina Gedeck, Fritzi Haberlandt, Gudrun Landgrebe, Sophie von Kessel, Julia Stemberger, Angela Winkler, Rufus Beck, Stephan Benson, Heikko Deutschmann, August Diehl, Stefan Kurt, Jens Harzer and Stefan Hunstein.

Website: www.ulfschneider-violine.de

• Schlossakademie Hamburg: 28-31 March 2026
• Summer Academy Uelzen: earky August 2026