Julian Kainrath

Julian Kainrath is an Italian violinist born (in Merano, Italy) on May 1, 2005.  (Merano is about 125 miles north of Milan, but it’s so far north that it’s a lot closer to Salzburg, Austria - and Munich, Germany - than it is to Rome. It has a long history, with a mixture of Italian and German culture.)  Kainrath came to international attention after winning the Ysaye International Music Competition in July, 2025.  He was 20 years old.  (Unlike other competitions, the Ysaye competition is held annually.)  He has since embarked on a very active concert career.  His violin studies began at age 6, but I don’t know the name of his first teacher.  At age 8, he began lessons with Dora Schwarzberg, a well-known pedagogue teaching in Vienna, Austria, at the time.  Kainrath had previously won first prize, at age 10, in an Austrian competition for young violinists.  During this period, he was also a member of the Vienna State Opera Children’s Choir.  He has also studied or attended master classes with Kristof Barati, Ilya Gringolts, Boris Kuschnir (teacher of famous Spanish violinist Maria Duenas), and Marc Bouchkov (at the Royal Conservatory in Belgium.)  He made his first orchestral appearance in Bolivia, South America.  (It’s not so unusual since his mother is Bolivian.)  He was 10 years old.  At age 11, he soloed with the National Symphony in Kiev, Ukraine.  He embarked on his first concert tour (as a soloist with orchestra) at age 13, touring northern Italy and Austria.  As many other violinists do, he maintained a concert schedule while studying.  Kainrath has participated in a multitude of music festivals far and wide.  Two very prominent musicians – Alfred Brendel and Sergey Krylov – have praised his artistry.  Kainrath is fluent in German, Spanish, English, and Italian.  (It’s not uncommon for Russian or European concert artists to be fluent in at least three languages.)  He has played a Vuillaume violin constructed in 1828 and a Michel Bergonzi from (about) 1745, although I don’t know which violin he plays at present.  Here is a YouTube video of him playing one of Ysaye’s sonatas for solo violin, the one dedicated to Jaques Thibaud.