Acclaimed for her expressive and very emotional performances, Alissa Margulis regularly plays in important concert halls such as the Berliner Philharmonie, the Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Tchaikovsky Hall Moscow, the Vienna Musikverein, the Tonhalle Zurich, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall.
Born in Germany into a family of Russian musicians, Alissa Margulis studied in Cologne with Zakhar Bron, in Brussels with Augustin Dumay, and in Vienna with Pavel Vernikov. She won numerous prizes at international violin competitions and was awarded with the “Pro Europa” prize of the European Arts Foundation which was presented to her by Daniel Barenboim in Berlin.
She made her first public appearance at the age of seven with the Budapest Soloists and has performed since then with numerous orchestras such as the English Chamber Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, Belgian National Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Kiev, Skopje, Ljubljana, Minsk, and Novosibirsk, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, and the Kremerata Baltica, amongst many others.
Alissa Margulis worked together with famous conductors such as Dmitry Liss, Jaap van Zweden, Enrique Mazzola, Daniel Raiskin, Stefan Vladar, François-Xavier Roth, Lars Vogt, Yuri Bashmet, Gidon Kremer, Christian Arming, Augustin Dumay, Mikko Franck, and Gerd Albrecht, to name just a few of them.
Besides her solo career Alissa Margulis is an enthusiastic chamber music player and collaborates with artists such as Martha Argerich, Yuri Bashmet, David Geringas, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, Gabriela Montero, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Liana Issakadze, Alexandre Tharaud, Stephen Kovacevich, Alexander Lonquich, and Polina Leschenko.
She further appeared at various Festivals such as the Enescu Festival Bucharest, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Stavanger Festival, at the Mozartwoche Salzburg, “Progetto” Martha Argerich Festival in Lugano, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and Verbier Festival.
Her discography includes more than a dozen CDs at labels such as EMI Classics, Oehms, Novalis, Avanti Classic, and CAvi. Notably two of the six EMI Classics releases of the “Martha Argerich and Friends“ series received a GRAMMY nomination, several others won the Diapason d’or. She recorded repertoire by Mozart, Shostakovich, Enescu, Beethoven, Messiaen, and others, as well as the complete music for violin and piano by Franz Liszt, Piazzolla Seasons, and took part in an all Klezmer recording alongside musicians such as Myriam Fuks, Roby Lakatos, Evgeny Kissin, Polina Leschenko, and Mischa Maisky.
Following her professorship at the Royal Conservatoire of Antwerp, Alissa Margulis is currently Violin Professor at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany.