Lukas Hagen

Univ.-Prof. of Violin⋅Institute for Chamber Music⋅Strings Department

Lukas Hagen studied at the Mozarteum and privately with Gidon Kremer. Since 1999, he has been Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at the Mozarteum University, regularly serving as a juror at international competitions and giving masterclasses worldwide. He was leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for seven years and is a founding member of both the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and the legendary Hagen Quartet.

Lukas Hagen studied violin at the Mozarteum Salzburg with Helmut Zehetmair, graduating with distinction in 1983. This was followed by a year of private lessons with Gidon Kremer. He also studied with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Walter Levin of the LaSalle String Quartet.

In the 1970s, he and his siblings founded the Hagen Quartet, in which he plays first violin. The quartet has won numerous first prizes at international competitions, including Portsmouth and Évian, and signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 1985.

He has performed as a soloist at the Salzburg International Mozart Week and the Salzburg Festival. He has gained an international reputation through concerts in Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, the USA, Japan, Italy and the UK, and is particularly celebrated for his interpretations of Dmitri Shostakovich and César Franck. Hagen was leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for seven years and also performs with the Serapion Ensemble.

Lukas Hagen was appointed Professor of Violin and Chamber Music at the Mozarteum University in 1999 and served as Vice Rector of the University, with responsibility for coordinating artistic projects, for over ten years from 2006. He is frequently invited to give masterclasses.

Together with his wife Iris, Lukas Hagen founded the chamber music festival Hagen Open Festival at Burg Feistritz (near Vienna) in 2004.

He is active as a juror at international competitions and chaired the jury of the International Mozart Competition in 2018 in the String Quartet category.

Lukas Hagen plays a modern violin made by Stefan-Peter Greiner. Occasionally, he plays the Stradivarius “Rawack” (formerly “Rawark”) from 1722, which belongs to the Österreichische Nationalbank. In 2017, he also played a Stradivarius from 1734.