Thomas Reif is First Coordinating Leader of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and is active internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. He is known for his stylistic versatility, ranging from early baroque repertoire to 20th century works and Argentine tango.
Active as a soloist as well as a chamber and orchestral musician, violinist Thomas Reif has held his current position at the BRSO since 2018. In the years immediately preceding his appointment, he won several international awards, including 2nd prize at the International Mozart Competition in 2016 and was Laureate at the Queen Elisabeth International Competition in Brussels in 2015.
As a sought-after chamber musician, he has played with Nils Mönkemeyer, Igor Levit, Maximilian Hornung, Clemens Hagen, Alice Sara Ott, Annika Treutler and Julia Hagen, among others. His love of early Baroque music led him to establish the ensemble Breath of Zephyr with harpsichordist Alexander Gergelyfi, which creates exciting new interpretations of works by Johan Helmich Roman, Francesco Maria Verancini and Jean-Baptiste Lully.
However, he is euqlly at home in the 20th century. Since 2017 he has been the violinist of Cuarteto SolTango, with whom he devotes himself to the Argentine tangos of the 30s to the 50s, repertoire which he delights in introducing to classical concert audiences at renowned festivals. 2017 saw the release on the Avi-music label of their fourth studio album, Misión Tango.
As a soloist he has performed with orchestras such as the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Orchester Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra, the Ensemble KNM Berlin and the Salzburg Chamber Soloists. He has worked with conductors such as Paul Meyer, Marin Alsop, Bruno Weil, Donato Cabrera, Ulrich Windfuhr and Douglas Boyd. In 2018 he made his debuts in the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Stuttgart Liederhalle, the Nuremberg Meistersingerhalle and the Rudolf-Oetker-Halle in Bielefeld; in 2019 he performed for the first time in the Reynolds Hall of the Smith Center Las Vegas, USA.
He is a regular guest at festivals such as the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Verbier Festival Academy, Davos Festival, Classique Puplinge, Festivo Aschau, Eggenfelden Klassisch and "Harriet and Friends".
Thomas Reif studied at the Mozarteum University Salzburg with Harald Herzl, in Hamburg with Tanja Becker-Bender, and with Stephen Picard at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin. He has also been inspired by his encounters with Midori, Igor Ozim, Ferenc Rados, Gerhard Schulz, Vadim Gluzman, Thomas Riebl, Eberhard Feltz and Christian Altenburger.
He plays a violin by Pietro Guarneri from around 1690, on private loan.