Thursday
24 September 2026

She is principal second violin of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and has been invited in this position to orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the hr-Sinfonieorchester, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. She also plays in some of Europe’s leading orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Utopia.

Sophia has performed in various chamber music formations with wonderful musicians such as Lorenza Borrani, William Coleman, Roel Dieltiens, Lily Francis, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Alina Pogostkina, Muriel Razavi, Dmitry Smirnov and Rainer Schmidt.

She also works regularly with Ensemble Tamangur, Cosmofonia Ensemble, Spira Mirabilis and Patrick Leung. Her performances have taken her to the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Mozart Week in Salzburg, the Pau Casals Festival, the Innsbruck Promenade Concerts, the Ludwigsburg Palace Festival and the Salzburg Festival. Her recordings and concerts have been broadcast by BR, WDR, ORF and Catalunya Música.

Highlights of recent years include several solo appearances with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg: Vivaldi’s Spring under Reinhard Goebel, and Mozart’s Serenata notturna in several concerts alongside Lorenza Borrani and Roberto González-Monjas, conducted by Manfred Honeck, Ivor Bolton and Maxim Emelyanychev.

Sophia has also performed violin concertos by J. Brahms, F. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, W. A. Mozart and A. Khachaturian with conductors Yoel Gamzou, Simon Edelmann, Stefan Schilli, Ulrich Weder and Johannes Zahn and orchestras such as Neue Philharmonie München, the chamber orchestra of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s academy and the Sinfonietta Isartal. Her solo appearances have taken her to halls such as the Philharmonie in Munich, Munich’s Herkulessaal and the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie.

Her most influential teachers were Rainer Schmidt as well as Wonji Kim-Ozim and Igor Ozim at the Mozarteum University Salzburg, Lorenza Borrani at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, Meesun Hong-Coleman at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, and Sonja Korkeala at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich.

She plays regularly with ensembles such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Spira Mirabilis, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. Her recent successes include first prize at the Elise Meyer Competition in Hamburg. In October 2025 she received the arts award of the district of Bad Tölz‑Wolfratshausen.

Chamber music is an important part of her work, and in 2024 she founded Trio Vivo with violinist Soyoung Park and pianist Antonio di Dedda. The trio performs regularly throughout Germany.

She had her first cello lessons at the age of four, first with Michael Weiß and later with Hanno Simons in Munich. From 2007 to 2019 she took part regularly in the “Jugend musiziert” competition and won numerous first prizes. In 2017 she also won the Sparkasse special prize in Bad Kissingen.

She already had many engagements as a soloist at a young age. In 2017 Katja Deutsch appeared as a soloist with Neue Philharmonie München in the series “Junge Stars in Fürstenfeldbruck” and was subsequently invited to give a concert in Baku, Azerbaijan. She has also appeared as a soloist with the Sinfonietta Isartal, the Orchesterverein München, the Hamburger Orchestergemeinschaft, the Wratislavia Chamber Orchestra and the Bad Reichenhall Philharmonic under conductors such as Fuad Ibrahimov and Christian Simonis.

Masterclasses with Prof. Peter Bruns, Prof. Troels Svane, Prof. Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Prof. Jens Peter Maintz and Prof. Natalie Clein, among others, have given her further important inspiration.

After completing a degree in medicine, Henriette studied piano at the music universities of Munich (Prof. Thomas Böckheler) and Lübeck (Prof. Konstanze Eickhorst), most recently in the song class of Prof. Wolfram Rieger at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

A keen ensemble player, Henriette has appeared as a guest with the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Schauspielhaus Hamburg and the Theater Bremen, among others, and held a scholarship at the academy of the Munich Radio Orchestra. In chamber music she has worked with the pianist Anna Buchberger, among others. As a piano duo they made their debut at the Salzburg Festival, gave recitals in venues such as the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche of the Munich Residenz, performed the chamber orchestra version of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony with the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra, and appeared as soloists with Neue Philharmonie München, including in Munich’s Herkulessaal.

Henriette gives song recitals with singers such as Tareq Nazmi, Julian Prégardien, Sönke Tams Freier, Ilker Arcayürek, Pia Davila, Oliver Boyd and Alexandra Ionis. New music is another of her interests, and she has given numerous world premieres, including works by Samuel Penderbayne. She has made radio recordings for BR-Klassik, Ö1 and Deutschlandfunk and taught répétiteur classes at the Berlin University of the Arts.

As a guest conductor he has appeared with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London), the Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse, the North Czech Philharmonic, the MDR Symphony Orchestra (Leipzig), the Staatskapelle Halle, the Göttingen and Nuremberg Symphony Orchestras, the Philharmonie Südwestfalen, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Kritisches Orchester® Berlin, whose members play in the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Staatskapelle Dresden. In 2012 he conducted his first opera production as a guest with the Gürzenich Orchestra at Cologne Opera, where he was invited back repeatedly between 2013 and 2015. In June 2011 Fabio Luisi invited him to the Pacific Music Festival in Japan.

Fuad Ibrahimov was born in Shusha, Azerbaijan, in 1982. At just 15 he took up his first position as a violist in the Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra while beginning his viola studies at the music academy there. After graduating, he continued his studies from 2002 at the Cologne University of Music with Prof. Rainer Moog. Following his soloist diploma, he studied conducting with Prof. Michael Luig from 2006 and graduated with top marks in 2011.

During this time he held scholarships from the Friends of Azerbaijani Culture Foundation and the Werner Richard – Dr. Carl Dörken Foundation, and gave concerts in many German cities under the patronage of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation. In 2010 he received the DAAD Prize for outstanding international students. Since childhood he has performed in Germany and abroad as a soloist and as a member of chamber ensembles and orchestras.

Strongly influenced by masterclasses with Mstislav Rostropovich, among others, he focused early in his conducting career on working with highly gifted young musicians. In 2008 he brought the Azerbaijan Youth Philharmonic, a state orchestra founded on his initiative, to the Young Euro Classic festival in Berlin for the first time. In 2010 he led a joint project of German music schools with Venezuela’s El Sistema and worked in Venezuela with, among others, the Sinfónica of the state of Guárico.

He has held the Presidential Scholarship of the Republic of Azerbaijan since 2013, and in March 2017 the President of Azerbaijan awarded him an Order of Merit for his cultural work. In 2018 he won the Evgeny Svetlanov International Conducting Competition in Paris.