Rahel Maria Rilling – Violin
Rahel Maria Rilling, born in 1976 in Stuttgart, Germany, received her first violin lessons at the age of 4. She studied with Wolf-Dieter Streicher in Stuttgart, with Yair Kless in Tel Aviv, with Michael Mücke at the Hanns-Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and with Nora Chastain at the Zurich/Winterthur Academy of Music. In masterclasses with Zakhar Bron, Joseph Silverstein, Mauritio Fuks and Christoph Poppen she received additional musical impulses.
She had early orchestral experience as a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and the Festival Ensemble of the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart and later served as concert master of the RIAS Youth Orchestra in Berlin. Rahel Rilling had numerous temporary jobs with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and became Co-Principal of the 2nd violins of the Northern Germany Broadcast (NDR) Orchestra in Hamburg in 2005. She is also concert master at the Oregon Bach Festival and the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart.
Rahel Rilling has been invited to several chamber music festivals in the United States and Europe, where she has played inter alia with Radovan Vlatkovic, Peter Frankl, Nora Chastain and Allan Vogel. Together with Gwendolyn Masin she founded the Hohenstaufen Chamber Music Festival in the region of Stuttgart in 2006. Additionally, she regularly teaches masterclasses at several schools of music in Venezuela.
In recent years, Rahel Rilling has performed violin concerts by Bach, Berg, Beethoven, Mozart and Mendelssohn as a soloist in Germany and abroad. In 2005 she was invited as a soloist by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Wolfram Christ.
Rahel Rilling plays a Tomaso Balestrieri violin from Cremona, 1767.