Maria Sotriffer was born in 1999 in Vienna into a family of musicians and received her first violin lessons from her mother at the age of two. At the age of four she was accepted into Eugenia Polatschek's class as the youngest student to date at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She also studied with Pavel Vernikov and Thomas Christian at the Music and Art Private University in Vienna and at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Elisabeth Kropfitsch and Gerhard Schulz. She has been in Albena Danailova's class since 2019.
Maria has attended master classes with Midori Goto, Ingolf Turban, Boris Kuschnir, Pierre Amoyal, Kirill Troussov, Donald Weilerstein and Krzysztof Wegrzyn. She is also a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein and takes part in the intensive weeks there.
Maria is the winner of the competitions “Prima la musica”, “Grand Prize Virtuoso International Music Competition”, “Rising Stars Grand Prix International Music Competition Berlin”, “The North International Music Competition” and the “IMK Soloist Audition”.
As an outstanding young talent, she appeared alongside international greats such as Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, Janine Jansen and Aleksey Igudesman in 2009 and 2010. She has given concerts at the Oleg Kagan Music Festival in Kreuth, directed by Natalia Gutmann, the Julian Rachlin and Friends Festival in Dubrovnik and Pernegg, and the Eilat Music Festival in Israel. Another highlight was a performance with Rudolf Buchbinder in the large Musikvereinssaal in Vienna in 2012.
As a soloist, Maria has worked with the North Czech Philharmonic, the Janácek Philharmonic Ostrava, the Camerata Musica Wien, the Traismauer Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Neue Streicher and the Franz Schmidt Chamber Orchestra under Nicolas Radulescu. Most recently she played Beethoven's violin concerto with the Beethoven Philharmonic under the direction of Matthias Fletzberger.
She plays a Viennese violin made by Franz Geissenhof - also known as the Viennese Stradivarius - from 1804.
Photo: Rita Newman