Biography
Multiple international award-winning British violinist Louisa Staples was born in 2000 and is currently studying at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler with Professor Antje Weithaas.
She has performed as soloist in many of the world’s most prestigious concert venues including Carnegie Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Royal Festival Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, L’Auditorium de Radio France, Concert Hall of the Forbidden City, Nikolaisaal Potsdam, Wigmore Hall, and the Konzerthaus Berlin.
Louisa is a major prize winner in competitions including the Long-Thibaud- Crespin International Competition, Louis Spohr International Violin Competition and the Carl Flesch International Competition, where she was awarded a total of four prizes including the Orchestra's Choice Award. In 2021 she was a finalist in the prestigious Premio Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa.
Louisa is the first violinist of the Viatores Quartet, a young string quartet based in Berlin who recently won the first prize and the prize of the Freunde Junger Musiker at the 2024 Mendelssohn-Bartholy Competition.
Recent concert highlights include a recital in New York’s Carnegie Hall, appearing as soloist in the Grand Hall of the Liszt Academy in Budapest, L’Auditorium de Radio France and St.Martin-in-the-fields in London and invitations to festivals including the Sommers Musicaux de Gstaad, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Hamburg International Chamber Music Festival, in addition to numerous solo recitals across Europe.
Louisa has undertaken masterclasses with eminent musicians including Donald Weilerstein, Philippe Graffin, Zakhar Bron, Rainer Schmidt, György Pauk and Robert Levin and performed with orchestras including the City of London Sinfonia, Savaria Symphony Orchestra, London International Orchestra, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and the Orion Orchestra.
She has featured on numerous live radio broadcasts on channels such as BBC Radio 3, Medici TV, RBB Kulturadio, Deutschlandfunk, Classic FM and France Musique and since 2019 is a member of Villa Musica Schloss Engers, as part of a special prize from the Louis Spohr International Violin Competition. She has performed in many Villa Musica projects alongside renowned artists including Christian Tetzlaff and Guy Braunstein and have given numerous solo recitals in Schloss Engers.
She is joint Artistic Director of the Alderney Chamber Music Festival- an annual summer music festival which she founded with her brother, Samuel Staples, which celebrates and brings together some of the world’s most promising young musicians for a series of summer concerts.
Aged eight, Louisa was awarded a place at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School where she was a student of Professor Natasha Boyarsky.
Louisa is currently a pursuing her Masters degree at the Hochschule für Musik „Hanns Eisler“ in Berlin, where she holds a bachelor degree and is a student of Professor Antje Weithaas.
Louisa is a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and performs on the „ex- Michel Schwalbe“ Guadagnini, made in Piacenza in 1744, generously loaned by the German Instrument Fund.