Johannes - profile

Johannes Lörstad

2nd violin

INTERVIEW

When and where was your first concert with the MCO? 1997 in Landshut, Germany.

What’s the best thing about playing with the MCO? The quality and the full engagement of each musician.

What is your most memorable moment with the orchestra? The Don Giovanni project in 1998. It lasted half a year and shaped the orchestra. Thanks to Daniel Harding, each performance was different, which also made us very flexible – a keyword for our ensemble to this day. I also met Sam there, who would later become my wife.

Can you tell us something about your instrument? I play on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume from 1866 that I found in Copenhagen.

What is the best thing about being a musician? To work with what has been my interest and passion since childhood.

BIOGRAPHY

Johannes Lörstad was born in Sweden in 1970. Born into a musical family, he began playing violin at the age of seven. He studied with Endre Wolf and Alexander Fischer at the Music Conservatory in Malmö and then later with Philippe Hirschhorn and Wiktor Liberman at the Utrecht Conservatory in Holland. He was awarded a soloist diploma from both institutions.

In 1998, Johannes became First Leader of the Malmö Opera Orchestra, where he remained until 2005 when he took up the position as leader of the second violin section with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. He has led the second violin section of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra since 1997, and since 2003 has been a member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which was originally directed by Claudio Abbado. Johannes has been guest leader for most of Sweden’s orchestras and has also been guest leader of the second violins several times in the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian State Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Apart from his orchestral playing, Johannes is an active chamber musician and guest instructor at the Music Conservatory in Stockholm, the Britten Pears Orchestra Aldeburgh, Orchesterzentrum Dortmund and the Music Conservatory in Ferrara.

Johannes lives in Stockholm with his wife and three children.