Egidius Streiff: c.v. (English)
Be it on the violin, on the viola, or even with electronic music, Egidius Streiff's performances radiate a conviction that is rare in classical music. Driven by a burning interest in new facets of life, he has premiered violin concertos by B.A. Zimmermann (Swiss premiere), Wen Deqing and Wang Xi-Lin as well as Robert Schumann (Swiss premiere of the cello concerto op.129 in the original version for violin).
Under his artistic direction, the ensemble antipodes has twice been chosen as ISCM ensemble in residence in Amsterdam; in 2005 and again in 2006. Composers from Switzerland, Germany, China, Cuba, Mongolia, New Zealand have dedicated their works to him, which led to performances at Wien Modern, Paris Présence, Hong Kong Arts Festival, Lucerne Festival a.o.
Beside his activities as a musician, he acts increasingly as a networker in cultural politics: Cultural initiatives in Mongolia ( the Mongolian Chuluun Foundation was founded on his initiative) and Korea (he is artistic director of the Korean cultural project "parallel worlds" which is supported by the Swiss foreign ministry) have allowed him to reach far into the daily life of people around the world, even though he sees his activities very simply: "I don't really like defining music as an "international language", as hailed in politics - much more to my heart is the inner necessity of music: There are moments where all that remains is music!"
Egidius Streiff plays the “Hegner-Guarneri”, an outstanding violin by Peter Guarneri of Mantova, made in 1707.