CICA Summer Music Festival
And School
Home of world class music performance and education
Felix Olschofka
String Area - Violin Faculty Biography
German-born and raised violinist, Dr. Felix Olschofka, has toured as soloist, concertmaster, and chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. In 1993 Olschofka gave his international solo debut at the Seoul Arts Center with the Seoul Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Roman Kofman with whom he made his first recordings for Korean television and radio. The violin concertos by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Mozart, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky are amongst Olschofka’s signature works for solo violin. His performances have been recorded and released by several radio and TV broadcasting stations such as NPR (USA), KBS (South-Korea), Megavision and ATB (South America), NRPR (Rumania), Deutsche Welle, ZDF, and WDR (Germany). As a proponent of contemporary music, Olschofka is a co-founder of SWARMIUS, a multi-facetted contemporary music ensemble that has performed extensively across the United States and Europe throughout the past six years in New York City, Los Angeles, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Philadelphia, Miami, Berlin, Hamburg, Stockholm, Ljubljana, and Venice. Olschofka has premiered numerous contemporary works for violin solo and violin along with live electronics.
His professional background also includes Concertmaster with the Terre Haute Symphony (Indiana) and Associate Concertmaster with the Brandenburg Philharmonic Potsdam (Germany). Since 2011, he leads the Ensemble du Monde in New York City as their Concertmaster. Olschofka holds a Bachelor and Master degree from the Music Conservatory “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin (Germany), a Performance Certificate from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Doctorate from the University of California San Diego, combining the best of both cultural worlds in his performing and teaching. As a pedagogue, Olschofka has served as faculty at Indiana University in Bloomington, San Diego State University, the Bay View Music Festival in Petoskey, Michigan, and is currently Associate Professor of Violin at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. His former students are members of world-renowned orchestras such as LA Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, and Houston Symphony, and won prizes at national and international competitions such as the Boyer Music Competition, Fischoff National Chamber Music, and the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in Japan. On a regular basis Olschofka gives master classes at renowned institutions such as Yale University, Eastman School of Music, Temple University, New York University, Florida International University, Arizona State University, University of California Los Angeles, Seoul National University, Ewha Womans University, Korea, National Taiwan Normal University, Academy of Music and Theater Rostock, Germany, Society for Electro Acoustic Music in Sweden (SEAMS), Stockholm, Universidad de Sao Paulo, Brazil, Universidad de Santiago, Chile, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico. Aside from his active performing and teaching career, Olschofka serves as an adjudicator on various juries of national and international competitions such as the Concurso Nacional de Violin "Hermilo Novelo" in Mexico, the International Queen Sophie Charlotte Violin Competition, and the International Max Bruch Violin Competition Cologne in Germany. Olschofka himself is a winner of numerous awards and competitions. He holds two 1st prizes in the prestigious German Youth Music Competition (Solo and Chamber Music Category), 2nd prize of the International Chamber Music Competition "Charles Hennen" in the Netherlands and a grant from the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation.
