Prof. Sonja Lena Schmid

Vita

Sonja Lena Schmid was born in Tübingen and studied cello and chamber music in Hamburg with Prof. Niklas Schmidt and Prof. Bernhard Gmelin, in Amsterdam and The Hague with Dmitry Ferschtman and in Lübeck with Prof. Troels Svane. She has been awarded many prizes and scholarships, such as the "ZEIT" scholarship of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, the "Huygens-Stipendium" of the Dutch government, the 1st prize of the International Chamber Music Competition "Charles Hennen". A special prize at the international competition "Schubert and the Modern" and an Echo Klassik in the category "Classical without Borders". She was a scholarship holder of the Villa Musica Mainz and participated several times in the Open Chamber Music Sessions Prussia Cove, England, at the invitation of Steven Isserliss.

Sonja Lena Schmid is familiar with both classical (chamber) music and the latest trends in contemporary music. She has premiered more than 60 works as a soloist and chamber musician. Her focus is on pieces that place special physical, performative or vocal demands on the interpreter and that are usually created in close collaboration with the composers.

As a member of the Decoder Ensemble she gives guest performances at international festivals and, since the 2017/2018 season, has been organising the concert series "Unterdeck" at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie with changing guests from different artistic disciplines, such as Brigitta Muntendorf, Nora Gomringer, Sarah Nemtsov, Heinrich Horwitz, Simon Steen-Andersen or Kötter/Seidl.

Together with pianist Anne von Twardowski, she initiated the project "Rauschen" in 2014, which combines classical chamber music with live electronics, for example in collaboration with the Teichmann brothers or Ada.

She is passionate about interdisciplinary projects, especially the combination of music and theatre. 

2008-2019 she was a member of the internationally successful quartet Salut Salon. In addition, she has worked in productions for the Munich Biennale, the Thalia Theatre and the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, among others, as well as in independent productions such as the children's music theatre "Teufels Küche" (Devil's Kitchen), which has given guest performances at the Hamburg State Opera and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and was nominated for the "Young Ears" prize.

In 2019 she was appointed professor for ensemble and digital performance at the Landeszentrum Musik-Design-Performance of the State Academy of Music Trossingen. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)