Performance
Barbara Lüneburg's work as a soloist and chamber musician has inspired numerous composers to write solo works, violin concertos and chamber music for her. In her career, she was awarded prestigious scholarships and various prizes in violin competitions. Barbara studied at Musikhochschule Karlsruhe and Lübeck, in London (Guildhall School of Music and Drama) and at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. She combines Russian and Western European virtuosic violin tradition with a fresh contemporary approach to music.
Barbara Lüneburg has featured on many CDs and radio productions documenting the versatility and high standard of her performing abilities. Critics have described her playing as 'viciously virtuosic, passionate, translucent, of an amazing capacity for purity of sound and integrity of pitch, detailed and nuanced, expressive and gripping'. Her first solo-CD The Refined Ear (label coviello classics) received international acclamation. Weapon of Choice, her solo DVD with multimedia works was released in 2011 at label Ahornfelder. International reviews speak of a groundbreaking production. Her latest solo CD "Beyond" with works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Giacinto Scelsi got five stars from BBC Music Magazine: "Juxtaposing late-Baroque contrapuntalist and 20th-century spectralist may seem audacious, but a focus on timbre proves it logical." (BW)
As a soloist Barbara has performed with groups as diverse as SWR Radiosymphonic Orchestra, Xenakis Ensemble Netherlands, Slagwerkgroep Den Haag, ASKO Ensemble, Landesjugendorchester Hessen and Rheinland Pfalz, Pfalztheaterorchester Kaiserslautern or Schwerin Philharmonics. Her touring schedule has taken her through Europe, both Americas, the Middle and Far East to major festivals such as Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Aldeburgh Festival (GB), Wien Modern (AT), Tongeyong Festival - Korea, Roaring Hooves – Mongolia, Cervantino Festival – Mexico, Music Marathon Chicago- USA, Fadjr Festival - Iran, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Munich Biennial and Schleswig Holstein Music Festival - Germany.
In 1992 ago Barbara Lüneburg founded ensemble Intégrales (1992-2012). She remained its artistic director throughout. The group enjoyed an international reputation as one of the foremost ensembles for non-conducted chamber music. In 2008, they were awarded the annual prize of the Oscar and Vera Ritter Stiftung, Hamburg, for their continuous outstanding work.
Research
Barbara was awarded major grants for her researching practice: her current artistic research project Embodying Expression, Gender, Charisma (funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF) delves deeply into the bodily work of instrumental performers in Western classcial music and how this is conveyed to and perceived by their audiences. Her artistic research project TransCoding (funded by the Austrian Science Fund) explored social media and their potential to interest and engage a young audience for the new arts. The Innovationsfonds Kunst Baden Württemberg, Germany funded the project Zukunftswerkstatt Trossingen which she conceptualized while being Professor of Digital Performance at the music University Trossingen. She was a main researcher in the artistic research project GAPPP-Gamified Audiovisual Performance and Performance Practice (funded by the Austrian Science Fund) in which she explored agencies of instrumental performers in audiovisual artworks with game structure. Her doctoral research on the topic of "A holistic view of the creative potential of performance practice in contemporary music" included theoretical and practical work on creativity and collaboration, programming, and concert aura. For this research alone she commissioned almost 30 new solo and chamber music works for violin, viola and electric violin in the years 2008 to 2010.
Teaching
Barbara Lüneburg holds a professorship of Artistic Research at Anton Bruckner Private University, Austria where she is also head of the doctoral programmes. She has given workshops, talks and seminars at major European, Asian and American universities and has been invited for master courses at the European Orchestra Academy, the Chiffren ensemble Schleswig Holstein (Germany) and the International Summer Academy of the Music University Vienna, Austria.