Valerie Fritz

Austrian cellist Valerie Fritz explores her instrument from electronics to gut strings, performing in both contemporary and classical music. Equally open and attentive to detail, she approaches works and audiences with sensitivity. Her wide-ranging repertoire demonstrates how all stylistic approaches benefit from looking beyond their usual boundaries.

Valerie Fritz is a regular guest at festivals such as the Musikfest Berlin, the Salzburg Festival, the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, the Klangspuren Schwaz, and the musica viva of the Bayerischer Rundfunk. Both as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles, she cultivates a direct, sensitive dialogue with her audience and seeks close collaboration with composers. Formative artistic encounters with personalities such as Georg Friedrich Haas and Jennifer Walshe have resulted in new works that are, in a sense, tailor-made for her and incorporate performative elements such as singing, whispering, or speaking.  

Valerie Fritz impresses with her versatile profile and innovative programming, for which she has received several awards. Among other honours, she received the Berlin Prize for Young Artists and was nominated as ECHO Rising Star of the 2025 / 26 season – an award that brings her to the leading concert halls of Europe. In 2024-2025, thanks to a scholarship from the Concerto21 Foundation, she is part of Sonia Simmenauer’s Zukunfts.music support programme. Her first CD recording, featuring works by York Höller, Rebecca Clarke, and Claude Debussy, will be released in autumn 2025 on the NEOS Music label.

Born in Tyrol, Valerie Fritz grew up in a family with a deep-rooted musical tradition. This lively musical environment shaped her from early childhood and laid the foundation for her artistic development. She received her musical training at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg with Clemens Hagen and Giovanni Gnocchi. Valerie Fritz plays an instrument made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in 1744, which is provided to her privately.