Béatrice Muthelet

"An exceptional musician, combining grace and finesse, always aware of what goes on around her, she is a treasure for any group of musicians joining her." (Simon Rattle)

Franco - German violist Béatrice Muthelet grew up in Versailles, before moving to Israel at the age of fifteen and joining the prestigious Telma Yelin High School of Arts. She trained as a violinist in the class of Chaim Taub, also benefitting from masterclasses given by Isaac Stern and Shlomo Mintz. Aged nineteen, she decided to continue her studies in the USA and became Pinkas Zukerman's first viola student, in the Manhattan school of Music, on a full scholarship.
Aged twenty-two she returned to Europe and joined the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, first as a member of the Karajan Academy and then as an intern for two further years. Béatrice joined the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as Principal Violist in 2001 and also became a founding member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra the following year, at Claudio Abbado's personal invitation.
Since then, she has often been invited all over the world as guest leader in orchestras such as the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Munich Philharmonic, the Bamberg symphony, the Swedish Radio, the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de Radio France and the orchestra of La Scala in Milan, to name but a few.
Béatrice Muthelet is a passionate chamber musician and in 2002 she founded the Capuçon Quartet, with brothers Renaud and Gautier Capuçon and Aki Saulière, with whom she played until 2013 in Europe's most prestigious venues and festivals. They have recorded two CDs produced by Erato and Virgin Classics.
Other chamber music partners include Martha Argerich, Steven Isserlis, Christian Tezlaff, Isabelle Faust, Gordan Nicolich, Maxim Vengerov, Ian Bostridge, Lars Vogt and many more. Teaching experiences include the Summer Academy in Ossiach, the Orchestra Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Orchesterzentrum in Dortmund, the Summer Academy in Bolzano and since 2016 the Junior Orchestra coaching at the Verbier Festival, as well as masterclasses at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland.
In 2018, under the patronage of the UNHCR refugee agency, she played with a German string quartet in Syrian refugee camps on several sites in Jordan, and in 2019 in Uganda. Béatrice Muthelet is one of the only members of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra to perform with the orchestra as a soloist, as occurred in October 2018 at the Locarno Festival, playing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Renaud Capuçon in Locarno and with Alexandra Conunova in Verona.
In March 2017 Telos released her first solo album of Harald Genzmer's integral viola works, for which she obtained five stars in Fonoforum magazine and saw the album described as “die besondere Aufnahme” on Deutschlandfunk.