Hannah Kandinsky

Hannah Kandinsky, born in 1996 in Bremen and raised in Salzburg and Vienna, began playing the violin at the age of ten in the class for highly gifted students of Arkadii Winokurow in Vienna. In 2013, she entered the preparatory program in the class of Cornelia Löscher at the Joseph Haydn Conservatory, before continuing her studies in 2016 at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Lothar Strauß. There, she completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees under the guidance of Georg Hamann.

Throughout her education, she received valuable artistic input from musicians such as Antje Weithaas, Vadim Gluzman, Eszter Haffner, Dora Schwarzberg, and Boris Kuschnir. In 2015, she made her debut with the Joseph Haydn Orchestra performing Karl Goldmark’s Violin Concerto, a well as with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in 2017 and 2019. She has been invited to festivals including Aurora (Sweden), Piano Prestige (France), New Age Festival (Spain), and the Gustav Mahler Academy (Italy).

In addition to numerous orchestral projects under renowned conductors such as Christian Thielemann, Lorenzo Viotti, and Kirill Petrenko, Hannah is an active member of the Les Essences Chamber Orchestra and has been invited on several occasions as guest concertmaster with the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra. Since 2025 she is invited as concertmaster and tutor to the Esker Festival Orchestra in Ireland.

As a founding member and primaria of her ensemble, the Kandinsky Quartet, Hannah has performed with distinguished musical personalities such as Asier Polo, Marie Chilemme, Nils Mönkemeyer and Elisabeth Leonskaja, who is the quartets mentor. Founded in 2020, the Quartettsatz studied with Johannes Meissl and Günter Pichler and currently studies with the Quatuor Ébène in Munich and with Vera Martínez Mehner and Heime Müller at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid. They have been invited to festivals including the Rheingau Festival, Heidelberger Frühling, Guadíx Clásica, Wien Modern and the Verbier Festival, where they were awarded the Verbier Anniversary Prize 2023. They are also winners of the Gasteig Competition in Munich and prize winners at the Boccherini Competition, the Mozart Competition in Salzburg and the International String Quartet Competitiom Bad Tölz.

Through the wide-ranging activities of the Kandinsky Quartet, Hannah has had the privilege of working closely with renowned composers such as Pascal Dusapin, Giulia Lorusso, Manfred Trojahn and Clara Iannotta at festivals including the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Milano Musica, Mozartfest Würzburg, and Impuls Graz. The quartet regularly receives artistic input from the Quatuor Diotima and was invited in 2024 to the Biennale di Venezia as String Quartet in Residence of the College Musica. Following her resulting interest in the contemporary field of music, Hannah will start her masters in new music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in autumn 2026 under the guidance of Annette Bik (Klangforum Wien) and Clement Power.

Hannah plays a violin by Giuseppe Rocca