The young French violinist Elsa Grether here gives the most passionate performances of three of Ernest Bloch’s works (...). It would be hard to imagine more moving performances of all this music than those of Grether (...). I look forward to hearing more of Elsa Grether.”

Edward Greenfield, Gramophone, September 2013

The charismatic young violinist Elsa Grether, noted for her passionate and intensely poetic playing, was born in Mulhouse, France. She was awarded a Premier Prix in violin by unanimous decision of the jury at the Conservatoire de Paris-CRR on her fifteenth birthday. Her lively curiosity prompted her to continue her training abroad, with Ruggiero Ricci at the Salzburg Mozarteum and then in the United States with Mauricio Fuks at Indiana University and Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory in Boston. She subsequently received guidance from Régis Pasquier in Paris. She won the Prix International Pro Musicis 2009 by unanimous decision of the jury with pianist Delphine Bardin. In 2012 she made recital debuts at Carnegie Weill Hall in New-York and in Boston. She has performed numerous concertos with orchestra, among them works by Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Bruch, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Shebalin, Dvorak, Prokofiev and Ravel (Tzigane). Elsa Grether has been heard as a recitalist at many festivals and other venues in France and abroad, including Le Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo, Menton, Polignac and Toulon Festivals, Festival Musica in Strasbourg, the Salle Cortot in Paris, Salle Flagey and Bozar in Brussels, les Rencontres Musicales de Savoie, Avery Fisher Hall in New-York, the Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago, the Indianapolis Art Museum, the Radio Nationale in Algiers, Schloss Mirabell in Salzburg, Palais des Festivals in Santander. Her first CD recording “Poème mystique”, dedicated to works by Ernest Bloch and Arvo Pärt, with pianist Ferenc Vizi, was released in March 2013 on the Fuga Libera/Harmonia Mundi label. It has been very warmly received by the press and has just received a “5 Diapasons” distinction in Diapason Magazine, “4 stars” in Classica Magazine as well as excellent reviews from Gramophone Magazine and La Libre Belgique, amongst others. Crédit photo : JB Millot
She has held scholarships from a number of foundations, among them the Fondation Safran pour la Musique, Fondation Banque Populaire, the Fondation de France (Prix Oulmont), the Fondation Cziffra, the Fondation Bleustein-Blanchet pour la Vocation, the Fondation Alliance, and the AJAM. In 1993 she was a prizewinner at the Young Soloists’ Competition organized by the RTBF in Brussels. She was the subject of a program in Alain Duault’s television series "Toute la musique qu’ils aiment " (France 3) and has often been a guest on the radio stations France Musique, France Culture, Musiq3 and RTS Suisse. Her appearances in 2012 included recitals in Venice at the Palazzetto Bru-Zane, in Switzerland for Radio Suisse Romande and at the Cully Classique Festival, in France at the Musicora Salon in Paris (Grand Auditorium du Palais Brongniart), the Festival des Forêts, Lille Clef de soleil, Présences Féminines in Toulon, Saoû chante Mozart, Uzerche Festival, in Belgium at Bozar in Brussels, the Classissimo and Stavelot Festivals, the Ostbelgien Festival, and at the Scène Nationale de Martinique. Forthcoming concerts will take her notably to the Strasbourg Festival de Musique where she will give the French-premiere of Siegfried Wagner Violin Concerto. Recent festival appearances include the “Flâneries musicales de Reims”, Festival de Musique Sacrée de Perpignan where she appeared with the actor Daniel Mesguich in a program based on her CD “Poème mystique”, and two return invitations to the Festival Lille Clef de soleil, with pianist David Lively and actor Francis Perrin. She performs regularly with pianists Ferenc Vizi, Marie Vermeulin, François Dumont, Delphine Bardin, Johan Schmidt and with such artists as Régis Pasquier, David Lively, Ronald van Spaendonck, Marc Grauwels, Marielle Nordmann, Pascal Contet, Geoffroy Couteau and Nicolas Stavy.