Violin Iskandar Widjaja

“One of the most exciting violinists on the international Fiddle- Circuit”

Arte, September 2019

“Iskandar Widjaja with his furious violin, animated with urgency and fire and highly sensitive lyricism. It is very unique playing with splinters and disruptions, with intangible and crackling sounds. It’s his complexity of style, which is remarkable. His violin never rests, always floating within the sound of the piano, the vibrations of the orchestra. Iskandar Widjaja is sort of a butterfly. He’s passing from one phrase to another, from idea to idea. I was never bored a single second listening to this marvelous CD.”

Francemusique.com September 2018

” Widjaja, with his captivatingly handsome stage presence, combines musical linearity and sentiment of the orientals with power and muscularity of the westerners in his playing (…). He is able to push the deeply impressed audience into the world of Beethoven and make them rediscover the work through his personal touch. Solemn, vast, brilliant, jubilant, (…)he displays the style of a new generation of violinists with his own personal strength . “

Shanghai Eastern Broadcasting Company, November 2018

Labeled both as “Worldclass-Violinist” (Stuttgarter Zeitung) and “Rockstar” (The Jakarta Post), ISKANDAR connects worlds. The son of arabic-dutch and chinese-indonesian parents grew up with high-caliber classical music and has performed as a soloist with internationally most renowned ensembles such as the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester- and Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, the Munich, Warsaw and Shanghai Philharmonics, Sydney Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna or the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. Simultaneously, he has developed a parallel showbiz career in east Asia, with regular TV appearances, commercial endorsement contracts, brand-ambassador duties and “trending topic” status (most mentioned term) on Twitter.

He entered the Berlin “Hanns Eisler” conservatoire as an extraordinary student at the age of eleven. Awarded many international prizes even as a teenager and while studying, he now collaborates with the great names of classical music such as Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, Rolando Villazón,Cameron Carpenter, David Foster, Anggun, Itamar Golan and Fazil Say. He is also often to be seen at mass-media events like Miss World or Miss Earth, the Davis Cup, EXPO in Milan, the Fashion Week in Paris or the world premiere in Vienna’s Konzerthaus of the suite for violin and orchestra “Across the Stars” from Star Wars.

In addition to the traditional repertoire, he created the concept-concert “Bach&ZEN” in collaboration with a ZEN-Master and also works as a composer and songwriter. His compositions cannot be narrowed down to one genre, but combine influences of filmmusic, baroque, pop and hiphop.

Iskandar is strongly committed to educational projects for children in the Asian Pacific region, typically in collaboration with UNICEF or the WWF. Supported by KOMPAS Gramedia, Indonesia’s biggest media group, and the “besharp foundation” he organizes charity events to finance musical instruments and instruction for orphans, street, and schoolchildren.

His personality and energy are aptly summed up by the string players’ house magazine The Strad, in the following words: “Iskandar Widjaja, a true force of nature.”

He plays the “Stephens” 1690 Stradivari and an 1875 JB Vuillaume.