Icelandic violinist Elfa Rún Kristinsdóttir first came to international prominence in 2006, when she won the Grand Prize, Audience Prize and prize for the youngest finalist in the International Bach Competition in Leipzig. Equally comfortable on modern and baroque violin, she divides her time between solo engagements, chamber music and leading larger ensembles.
Her varied engagements for the season 21/22 include several staged concerts at venues such as the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Schwetzinger Festspiele, collaborating with Nico and the Navigators and with director Dan Tanson. She returns as guest concertmaster of Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, plays with ensemble like Il Pomo d’Oro, and directs her own Baroque ensemble in Iceland, Barokkbandið Brák, which she founded in 2015 and leads in several concerts every year, as well as inviting guest artists to enrich the small but steadily growing early music scene in Iceland.
Her solo projects involve both the modern and baroque violin and her latest CD release, of Baroque Sonatas by Biber and Schmelzer (April 2020 on the Solaire Label) has been described as ‘excellent and energetic’ (Pizzicato) and ´breathtaking, wide-ranging and exciting’ (rbbKultur).
Her chamber music partners include Olga Pashchenko, Matan Porat, Anna Besson, Anthony Romaniuk, Francesco Corti and she works regularely with early music ensembles like Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Il Pomo d´Oro and Collegium 1704. She can be seen regularly in staged concerts, including new projects in 2021/22 with Nico and Navigators and music theater ´Schattegold´ to be premiered in Konzerthaus Berlin in November 2021.
After growing up in her native Iceland, Elfa Rún moved to Germany, where she studied in Freiburg with Rainer Kussmaul and in Leipzig with Carolin Widmann. She has performed widely to universal acclaim: as a concerto soloist alongside conductors François-Xavier Roth and Paul McCreesh and with orchestras such as the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, Les Siècles and the Hamburger Symphoniker, and as a soloist and chamber musician in numerous festivals around the world, including the Bachfest Leipzig and the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht. Elfa Rún can regularly be seen playing in choreographed concerts as well as in theater plays. From 2006-2014 she was concertmaster of Berlin-based Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, where she took an active part in developing diverse concert projects. Together with Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop she collaborated with various directors, artists and composers such as Sasha Waltz, Georg Nussbaumer and Sarah Nemtsov.
