Julia Hagen

Naturalness and warmth, vitality, and the courage to take risks: These qualities are often used to describe Julia Hagen’s playing. The young cellist from Salzburg is just as convincing as a soloist with orchestra as she is in recital or in numerous chamber music constellations alongside prominent partners. She combines technical mastery with high artistic standards and a direct, communicative approach to music-making.

Julia Hagen was awarded the UBS Young Artist Award in 2024, which included a concert with the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Christian Thielemann at the Lucerne Festival. In 2025, she will return to the Lucerne Festival as a soloist – this time with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.

At the Vienna Musikverein, Julia Hagen will be featured as “Artist in Focus” during the 2025/26 season, performing Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jakub Hrůša, in a recital with Sir András Schiff, and in two piano trio programs.

Julia Hagen is a regular guest at the Salzburg Festival, the Schubertiade, the Heidelberg Spring Festival, and the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence. She has enjoyed a long-standing collaboration with both the Camerata Salzburg and the Mozarteum Orchestra, with whom she will be touring Spain this season. She will make her debut with the Orchestre de Paris in December 2025. As a soloist, she performs with major orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orquesta Nacional de España, and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. She works with conductors such as Alain Altinoglu, Elim Chan, Thomas Guggeis, Paavo Järvi, Andrés Orozco-Estrada and Petr Popelka.

Chamber music is particularly close to her heart, and has taken her to the Berlin Philharmonic, London's Wigmore Hall, Zurich's Tonhalle, and Vienna's Musikverein. Her chamber music partners include Igor Levit, Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, Isabelle Faust, Lukas Sternath, and Leif Ove Andsnes. In the current season, she is appearing with the Hagen Quartet at the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Dresden Music Festival, and the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. The Dortmund Konzerthaus is presenting Julia Hagen over three seasons as a “Junge Wilde” in chamber music formats as well as a soloist with orchestra.

Her studies with Enrico Bronzi in Salzburg and Reinhard Latzko in Vienna were followed by formative years in Heinrich Schiff's class in Vienna and studies with Jens Peter Maintz at the Berlin University of the Arts. As a scholarship holder at the Kronberg Academy, Hagen also studied with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. In autumn 2025, she will take up a professorship in cello at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Deutsche Grammophon and Hänssler Classic have released recordings of works by Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Fauré, and Richard Strauss. Julia Hagen plays a cello by Francesco Ruggieri (Cremona, 1684) which has been made available to her privately.