Anne Schumann

After completing music degree programs in Weimar and Dresden, Anne Schumann began her concert career in 1989 as a violinist in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. As a freelance musician, she first gained a foothold in England in 1993, where she still performs regularly with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, among others.

Meanwhile, her musical life is characterized by great diversity. She is particularly interested in forgotten compositions
also for viola as well as viola d’amore.

In 2019 Anne Schumann was honored with the Fasch Prize of the City of Zerbst.


Anne Schumann about her career:

“While still a child, the viola d’amore had piqued my curiosity long before I knew what beautiful tones can be called forth from the gut strings of a Baroque violin. After being raised in a very musical household, I studied the modern violin at the state music conservatories in Weimar and Dresden.

The dream of one day playing the viola d’amore was no longer as strongly present at the time, but re-emerged after I finished my studies. I was happy about my work as a member of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and, in addition to my work there, I intensively studied the range of tonal colors and new possibilities for articulation on my Baroque violin.

Ultimately this music and especially the engaging manner in which it was interpreted would not let me go and I left the orchestra in order to have more free rein for my own ideas. Concert engagements in, among other countries, England and France as well as working with my ensemble in Leipzig, the Chursächsische Capelle Leipzig, fully occupy my days as a Baroque violinist. My repertoire expanded very quickly to include works for the viola and, as I had always desired, for the viola d’amore.”

Photography: Klaus Voigt

The artist's homepage:

www.anneschumann.info