Michael Barenboim (born 1985 in Paris) started playing the violin when he was 7 in Berlin, where his teachers were Abraham Jaffe and Axel Wilczok. He is a member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra since 2000, of which he is concertmaster since 2003. As such he has played in the Royal Albert Hall in London, the théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Deutsche Staatsoper and the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Festspielhaus in Salzburg, Carnegie Hall in New York, Orchestra Hall in Chicago and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, to name a few. In this orchestra, he played under Daniel Barenboim and Pierre Boulez; he also participated as assistant concertmaster in the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado.

 

He is a regular substitute in the Vienna Philharmonic, where he played under Zubin Mehta and Daniel Barenboim, and the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle. Furthermore he has participated several times as concertmaster in concerts of the Filarmonica della Scala and in opera performances in la Scala.

 

As a chamber musician, he performed at the Salzburg Festival, Rheingau Festival, Bonn Beethoven Fest and the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival amongst others. Concert tours have taken him to Moscow, Berlin, Chicago, New York and Montréal in 2007/2008, and to Toledo, Vienna (where he has played both in the Brahms Saal and the Gläserner Saal) and Berlin in 2008/2009. He performs regularly with such musicians as Guy Braunstein, Frans Helmerson, Daniel Barenboim, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Nikolai Znaider amongst others. He is also the founder and first violin of the Erlenbusch quartet, which is performing in Germany and Israel.

 

As a soloist he appeared in the Konzerthaus and at the Staatsoper in Berlin, in Lisbon, in Chicago, in Caracas amongst other cities and has played the complete Bach solo sonatas and partitas in Europe and the Middle East on several occasions, most recently in Bologna in 2009. In the summer of 2009, he has performed the Kammerkonzert of Alban Berg with members of the West-Eastern Divan in London, Salzburg, Geneva, Essen and Berlin. In April 2010 he played «Anthèmes 2» by Pierre Boulez in the Staatsoper Berlin with the composer present.