At the core of Nadja Zwiener’s music-making is direct communication with the audience, an exchange which leaves both performer and audience physically as well as emotionally and intellectually moved. 

Although she was brought up in an academic and scientific household, both parents instilled in Nadja a keen sense that it was art and culture that bound life together and gave significance to learning; more specifically, interaction with music and all art enriched emotional connections with all of humanity.

A large part of Nadja´s musical education was spent as a founding member of the Kuss Quartett at the Musikgymnasium Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. At the quartet’s inception the three upper voices swapped roles; this meant that, already as a teenager, Nadja became used to learning music as a conversation between equals. This approach is still key to her work today as an orchestral leader.

Nadja’s desire to immerse in a different culture, coupled with the opportunities to travel that the fall of the Berlin wall offered, brought her to London for postgraduate studies.

It was while studying at the Guildhall School that Nadja had her Damascene moment as a Baroque violinist. Asked to play in the band for Monteverdi’s Vespers, she initially thought of the music as too dry and too remote to have any emotional impact on her. What a revelation it was: the combination of instruments and voices, of richness and clarity, unfamiliar timbres and harmonic structures were inspirational; the method of working, bringing singers and instrumentalists together in true collaboration, seemed to combine the thrill of large-scale music making with the intimate approach of a chamber musician. 

These experiences continue to inform Nadja’s attitude as the leader of The English Concert, where since 2007 she has enjoyed varied roles as leader, chamber musician and concerto soloist.   

As a Thuringian living in Leipzig, Nadja Zwiener feels particularly at home with the music of Bach. She was the concertmaster at the Bachakademie Stuttgart from 2016 to 2022, where she helped in building up the Gaechinger Cantorey orchestra on original instruments. She regularly appears as guest leader for B’Rock and other early music groups and particularly enjoys working with singers. She also creates interesting solo and chamber music programmes that range from combining early music with improvised, electronic or even contemporary music, literature and dance.

Her first solo CD Senza Basso- Auf dem Weg zu Bach was released in 2021 on the Leipzig label Genuin, followed two years later by the recording 1723 with Johannes Lang for Ramée. Both recordings were enthusiastically received by the press. This led to the formation of a new early music ensemble at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, the Collegium Musicum ’23. Their first recording, The Art of Fugue on Bach’s Instruments, will be released in Spring 2025 (Ramée).

Nadja plays a violin by David Tecchler (Rome 1723).