Iskandar Widjaja

The German violinist Iskandar Widjaja has built a broad following across Germany, the country of his birth and musical formation, and Indonesia, the land of his ancestry. His programs have encompassed both standard repertoire and crossover projects. Born in Berlin on June 6, 1986, to parents of Chinese, Dutch, and Arab Indonesian descent, Widjaja (pronounced weed-JEYE-uh) began violin studies at age four. By eleven he had advanced sufficiently to enter the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin as a junior student. University training commenced in 2003 at Berlin’s University of the Arts under Ilan Gronich and Uwe-Martin Haiberg, supplemented by a scholarship period at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Early accolades included first prize at the 2004 Jugend Musiziert competition and another at the International Hindemith Competition in 2008; that same year he received the Gerd Bucerius scholarship from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, which funded lessons in Tel Aviv with Ida Haendel and Shlomo Mintz. Additional teachers have included Christian Tetzlaff and Midori. His engagements have spanned five continents and featured collaborations with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and leading European summer festivals. In 2016 he introduced John Williams’ Suite for violin and orchestra (“Across the Stars”) at the Vienna Konzerthaus. High-profile appearances arranged by his team have ranged from the Miss World Contest and Paris Fashion Week to the opening ceremony of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bali. Within Indonesia, where Western classical music remains comparatively uncommon, Widjaja has presented conventional recitals with the Jakarta Philharmonic Orchestra while also directing educational initiatives supported by UNICEF, the World Wrestling Federation, and the newspaper Kompas that supply instruments and instruction. His domestic visibility approaches that of a pop idol, regularly placing his activities on Twitter’s trending lists. His first commercial recording, Bach ’n’ Blues, appeared on the Oehms label in 2011. In 2019 Sony Classical issued his performance of Fazil Say’s Violin Concerto “1001 Nights in the Harem.”