Claudia Mende

Wandering from the nursery to Museum Island and even beyond the borders of East Berlin, I was assigned the violin as the youngest of five children. I reached the Deutsches Musikschulorchester via a conventional music school path and various personal influences, embracing not only klezmer but also the baroque violin. From the special school “Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach” on Bernauer Straße, the journey from the nursery to the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin at the Gendarmenmarkt was not far. With an orchestral diploma in hand, I continued on, knowing that a traditional orchestral career was not my destiny. Finally, I followed my true calling: the baroque violin. I was inspired by Professor Susanne Scholz at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” in Leipzig with her experimental and uncompromising approach. It was during that time that I met my future husband, Sebastian, who works in violin making and had already shown an interest in baroque instruments. His first baroque violin remains my top choice among the instruments – as you can hear in many of my recordings. During my studies I experimented in various formations with friends, achieving successes such as: 1st Prize at the “9th Biagio-Marini Competition” 2007 with the Trio Mende-Gröger-Weiß; the “Gebrüder Graun Prize 2007” with the Ensemble KlangZeitRaum; and in 2009, the scholarship of the “Deutscher Musikwettbewerb” with inclusion in the Federal Selection for Concerts by Young Artists with the Hofkapelle Schloß Seehaus. Invitations soon followed from ensembles – to name a few for the sake of completeness: European Union Baroque Orchestra, English Concert, Les Cornets Noirs, United Continuo Service, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Pera Ensemble, The Playfords, and Musica Fiata. As a freelance musician, it is wonderful to secure a permanent place in some ensembles and even shape their musical direction, for instance as concertmaster in the Orchester für Alte Musik Vorpommern, in Capella Jenensis, with Berlin Baroque, with the Deutsche Hofmusik, as a constant member of Musica Fiata, and with the newly founded Ensemble La Rubina. When I’m not on parental leave (we now have six children of our own…), I love playing at the world’s most enchanting concert venues – or even in the nearest backyard. My love for unusual instruments and musical styles from other cultures has always accompanied me, for example in the band tants in gartn eydn or ?shmaltz!.
From 2014 to 2018, I had the privilege of teaching baroque violin and viola at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, and since 2019 I have held a similar position at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in our adopted home, Weimar.