Mari Samuelsen

In Mari Samuelsen's musical universe, there are no barriers between the music of contemporary composers like Max Richter or Arvo Pärt and that of Bach, Beethoven and Vivaldi. With her adventurous approach to programming and presentation, Samuelsen has inspired a global audience. The Norwegian violinist's emotionally charged style of playing, backed by an immaculate technique and searching intelligence, makes her broad repertoire even more captivating to listen to. Born in 1984 in the Norwegian town of Hamar, Samuelsen received her first violin lessons at the age of three and continued her studies with Arve Tellefsen. From an early age, she performed with her cellist brother Håkon, with whom she later made duo appearances around the world. At the age of 14, she enrolled at Oslo's prestigious Barratt Due Institute of Music, and she later continued her studies for nearly a decade with Professor Zakhar Bron at the University of the Arts in Zurich. Now in demand worldwide as concerto soloist and recitalist, Samuelsen has performed at leading venues that include New York's Carnegie Hall, the Paris Philharmonie, and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Berlin Konzerthaus, Geneva's Victoria Hall, the Tonhalle Zurich, London's Barbican and the Hollywood Bowl. She gave the world premiere of James Horner's double concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra in 2014, and recorded the work as the centrepiece of Pas de Deux. Her first solo recording, Nordic Noir, was an album of the kind of hauntingly atmospheric music known from TV series such as The Killing, The Bridge, and Broadchurch. Both albums were hits on the Norwegian pop charts (reaching the No. 1 and No. 2 spots respectively). In 2017, Samuelsen joined Max Richter and the 12 ensemble to open the Montreux Jazz Festival with Richter's Recomposed. She works regularly with the British composer and appeared as a soloist on Deutsche Grammophon's world premiere recording of Three Worlds – Music from Woolf Works as well as performing "November" as part of the Yellow Label's DG120 concert at Beijing's Forbidden City in 2018. European tours and performances of Recomposed continued in Hong Kong with Richter and of his Memoryhouse in Tokyo with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. Other highlights include concerts with the Orchestre national de Lyon together with Max Richter; Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps with fellow DG artist Alice Sara Ott at Schloss Elmau and LSO St Luke's; touring with Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic, with appearances at the Berlin Philharmonie and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie; and an appearance at the Radio France Festival with the Orchestre National Montpellier. Samuelsen signed an exclusive agreement with Deutsche Grammophon in 2019 and plays a G.B. Guadagnini violin (Turin, 1773), on generous loan from the Anders Sveaas Charitable Foundation, Oslo.