Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter Marks 50 Years On Stage with Recording Project

January 15, 2026, 1:29 PM · Starting this year and going through next, German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter will celebrate her remarkable 50-year career on the concert stage as a soloist, chamber musician, and recording artist - and in more recent years, as a mentor and commissioner of new music.

Anne-Sophie Mutter. Photo by Andreas Ortner.

To commemorate this milestone, Mutter is launching a series of recordings called ASM Forte Forward on Alpha Classics. The new recordings will focus on new music, exclusively featuring contemporary works written for Mutter. And for the first time, she is producing the recordings herself.

"I choose to be more than a guardian of traditions," Mutter said. "Music lives as we renew it and pass it on."

The first recording in the series, "East Meets West," is scheduled for release in late March. It will include works by four composers, opening with "Likoo" for solo violin by Iranian-Dutch composer Aftab Darvishi, followed by "Gran Cadenza" for two violins by Unsuk Chin, a South Korean composer living in Berlin. Next is Jörg Widmann's String Quartet No. 6, "Studie über Beethoven"; then Thomas Adès' work for violin and orchestra, Air-Homage to Sibelius, premiered in 2022 and recorded here with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the British composer himself.

The second album, "American Tunes #1," features works by André Previn and Sebastian Currier, and will be released in August 2026. The release of this album coincides with Anne-Sophie Mutter’s 50th anniversary concert at the Lucerne Festival, where she made her international debut in 1976.

1976 was also the year Mutter met the legendary Berlin Philharmonic conductor Herbert von Karajan. She debuted with the Berlin Philharmonic the next year at the Salzburg Whitsun Festival, and she and Karajan would go on to perform and record together for 13 years, until his death.

Mutter will release more albums in the "ASM Forte Forward" series in 2027 and 2028.

Find Mutter's live concert schedule here. Her upcoming performances include live premieres of "Likoo, for violin solo" by Aftab Darvishi, which is featured on the new album.

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Ben Furman

January 15, 2026 at 06:56 PM · Mutter remains my favorite classical violinist. She’s not flashy, but she has made consistently strong musical contributions throughout her career.

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Violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter Marks 50 Years On Stage with Recording Project

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