Festival Orchestra: Melodies of Britain

Violinist Maria Ioudenitch attracted the attention of music lovers worldwide when she won first prizes at three international violin competitions in 2021—the Ysaÿe, Tibor Varga and Joseph Joachim Competitions—as well as numerous special prizes at these competitions, including Joachim’s Chamber Music Prize, the prize for the best interpretation of a commissioned work, and the Henle Urtext Prize. In 2023, she won the Opus Klassik Award in the category “Chamber Music Recording of the Year” for her debut album, Songbird, on Warner Classics.

The young violinist’s innovative programming is reflected in her album Songbird. She performs violin concertos by Brahms, Barber, Dvořák and Glazunov, as well as Prokofiev’s First Concerto, while in recital programs she presents works by Lili Boulanger and Germaine Tailleferre alongside the wellknown violin repertoire.

Highlights of the 2025/26 season included debuts with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, the Royal Danish Opera Orchestra under Marie Jacquot, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra under Jan Willem de Vriend, and the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies. She toured Munich, Vienna and Ljubljana with the Basel Symphony Orchestra and Markus Poschner. Ioudenitch also performs extensively in the US and Canada, including appearances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and the North Carolina Symphony.

She gives recitals with pianist Roman Borisov at the Brucknerhaus Linz, in Staufen and at London’s Wigmore Hall. She is a member of the chamber music collective ensemble132, with whom she will release an album of works by Stravinsky and Schumann in early 2026. Her chamber music partners include Inmo Yang, Stephen Waarts, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Julian Steckel and Pablo Barragán.

More recently, she has appeared as a guest soloist with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. She collaborates with conductors such as Andrey Boreyko, Sir Donald Runnicles, Alpesh Chauhan, Marta Gardolińska, Holly Hyun Choe, Jonathan Bloxham, Yi-Chen Lin, Ryan Bancroft, Kevin John Edusei, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Andrew Manze, Robin Ticciati and Ruth Reinhardt.

Ioudenitch grew up in Kansas City and began playing violin at the age of three with Gregory Sandomirsky. She studied with Ben Sayevich at the International Center for Music in Kansas City, with Pamela Frank and Shmuel Ashkenasi at the Curtis Institute of Music, and with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory, before completing the Professional Studies Program at the Kronberg Academy with Christian Tetzlaff.