Ruth Killius

Ruth Killius (born June 20, 1968 in Lahr , Baden-Württemberg) is a German violist .

Life

She completed her viola studies with Ulrich Koch and Kim Kashkashian . In addition to the standard viola repertoire, Ruth Killius deals intensively with contemporary music. She has appeared in numerous world premieres, including in Elliott Carter's oboe quartet with Heinz Holliger and in Brian Ferneyhough's string trio with members of the Geneva new music ensemble Contrechamps.

From 1993 to 1996 she was principal violist with the Camerata Bern , since then Ruth Killius has performed as a soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra , the Residence Orchestra The Hague, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Basler Sinfonieorchester, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig. At the beginning of the 2009/2010 season, Ruth Killius undertook a concert tour through Australia alongside the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in Perth and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the Sydney Opera House. Further engagements have taken her to Odense in Denmark (Bartók: Viola Concerto ) and Biel (Hindemith: Der Schwanendreher ).

Ruth Killius is a regular guest at renowned festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival and the Helsinki Festival.

Chamber music

Together with Thomas Zehetmair , Ruth Killius founded the Zehetmair Quartet in 1994, which is one of the leading string quartets today. The recording of Robert Schumann's First and Third String Quartet has received numerous prizes, including the Gramophone Award (Chamber Music - Record of the Year, 2003). The quartet's recordings with the string quartets No. 4 by Paul Hindemith and No. 5 by Béla Bartók were awarded the Diapason d'Or of the year 2009. In addition, Ruth Killius recorded a CD with works by Elliott Carter and Isang Yun for ECM together with Heinz Holliger and Thomas Demenga . The recording with Mozart's Sinfonia concertante and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century under the direction of Frans Brüggen also attracted a lot of attention.

As a duo with Thomas Zehetmair, Ruth Killius can be heard in numerous music centers. Her recording Manto and Madrigals with works by Béla Bartók, Heinz Holliger and Bohuslav Martinů was released by ECM in March 2011 . In the 2011/2012 season Ruth Killius and Thomas Zehetmair performed Mozart's Sinfonia concertante with the Orquesta de Lyon, the Orquesta de Câmara Portuguesa and the Orchestra of the Hessian State Theater Wiesbaden.

From 2001 to 2003 Ruth Killius held a professorship for viola at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz.

Recordings

• Karl Amadeus Hartmann / Béla Bartók , ECM Records Publishing House; Berlin: Universal Music (ECM New Series 1727), 2001, Zehetmair Quartet
• Lauds and lamentations , Graefelfing: ECM-Records-Verlag; Berlin: Universal Music, 2003, (2 CD), Thomas Zehetmair (violin), Ruth Killius (viola), Thomas Demenga (violoncello)
• Robert Schumann , ECM Records Verlag; Berlin: Universal Music (ECM New Series 1793), 2003, Zehetmair Quartet
• Béla Bartók / Paul Hindemith , ECM Records Verlag; Berlin: Universal Music (ECM New Series 1874), 2007, Zehetmair Quartet
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Violin Concerts No. 1-5, Sinfonia Concertante , Glossa (GCD 921108), 2009, Thomas Zehetmair (violin), Ruth Killius (viola), Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, conductor: Frans Brüggen, live recordings from Brazil and the Netherlands
• Hindemith, Petrassi, Veress. String Trios , Stradivarius; 2011, Trio Contrechamps: Isabelle Magnenat (violin), Ruth Killius (viola), Daniel Haefliger (violoncello)
• Manto and madrigals , Graefelfing: ECM-Records-Verlag, Berlin: Universal Music, Vertrieb, P 2011, Thomas Zehetmair (violin), Ruth Killius (viola)