Cristian Grajner de Sa is well known to British audiences and is firmly establishing himself as an emerging young artist in the old tradition of violin playing. At the age of 24, he gave his European debut recital at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, with his performance acclaimed as “equally poetic, wild, fierce… a future giant among violin soloists”. He is now invited to make his concerto debut abroad with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Lisbon for a series of performances.

He has performed in many of the great venues of Europe, such as the Mozarteum Salzburg, Atheneum Bucharest, Wigmore Hall in London, the Cheltenham Festival, St. Martins-in-the-Fields in London, Salle Paderewski in Lausanne, the Corn Exchange, Bedford and in Spain with the Orquesta de Cámera de Galicia. He has been broadcast widely on BBC Television, Scala Radio FM, TVR Romanian National Television, TRT3 Radio Turkey, The Violin Channel and BBC Radio 3, and has a repertoire of most of the staple concerti of the literature, and particularly of French origin with which he has a strong affinity. In June 2020, he released live recordings under the Ulysses Arts label on Apple Music, Deezer and has totalled over 40,000 streams to date on Spotify. After taking a keen interest, Scala Radio introduced him as their very first ‘Young Artist’, and his album has now been chosen by Idagio to feature on their worldwide platform. 

As a recipient of the Gold Medal with High Distinction at the International Vienna Music Competition, 2019, his performances were praised with “huge musicality, a depth of understanding and technical virtuosity”, and Cristian previously received the First Prize at the inaugural ‘Groba’ International Violin Competition in Spain. He was also a string finalist at the celebrated competition, the BBC Young Musician and was one of 7 semi-finalists selected at the Georges Enescu Competition 2018. Upon his graduation with First Class Honours from the Royal Academy of Music in 2017, Cristian was awarded the distinguished ‘J & A Beare Prize’; the prize is gifted to the most outstanding violinist of the conservatoire. In the same year, the Academy invited him to perform with his regular mentor in London, Maxim Vengerov, in an evening of Brahms’ chamber works to celebrate Vengerov’s final concert as the Academy’s Menuhin Professor of Music.

Cristian was born in December 1994 and is of Italian and Portuguese heritage. He was awarded the Leverhulme Scholarship from the Royal Academy of Music at the age of thirteen and commenced his studies with the legendary French violinist, Maurice Hasson, who has had an important artistic influence on him and with whom he remains in close contact. Cristian also spent time working with Tasmin Little as her only selected pupil at the Academy. He completed his conservatory education at the Mozarteum University, Salzburg in the class of Pierre Amoyal.

Cristian has worked closely and received advice from most of today’s great pedagogues and performers; notably Pinchas Zukerman, Silvia Marcovici, Menahem Pressler, Sylvia Rosenberg, Vadim Repin, James Ehnes, Rodney Friend and Ralph Kirshbaum.