Michaela Girardi-Riegler
The Salzburg-born violinist studied at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, Indiana University (USA) Lübeck University of Music. Her teachers include Paul Roczek, Mauricio Fuks and Shmuel Ashkenasi. Michaela Girardi has been a section leader with the Camerata Salzburg since 2008 and leader of the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra since 2024. She is also guest leader of orchestras such as the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and the Bavarian Chamber Orchestra Bad Brückenau.
Since her first solo appearance at the age of eleven, Michaela Girardi has given solo performances with orchestras such as the Camerata Salzburg, the Mozarteum Orchestra, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz.
Her great passion is chamber music, especially music of the 20th and 21st centuries. As a member of the Callino Quartet (2006–2009), she was influenced by her collaboration with artists such as the Hagen Quartet, Eberhard Feltz, Walter Levin, György Kurtag and Erich Höbarth. Concert tours have taken her to venues such as the Wigmore Hall, the IMS Prussia Cove, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. As a member of œnm (Austrian Ensemble for New Music), in the Ensemble risonanze erranti and in the Ensemble Plus she works intensively with composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Peter Ruzicka, Helmut Lachenmann, Nikolaus Brass and Hector Parra. In 2020 she took on the solo part in the radio premiere of the rediscovered Opus 1 by Hans Werner Henze.
Michaela Girardi teaches at the Mozarteum University Salzburg and gives masterclasses at the Austrian Master Classes and at the International Summer Academy at the Mozarteum University. Her students often win prizes at well-known national and international competitions.