Leila Schayegh

Leila Schayegh belongs to a new generation of baroque violinists noticed for the richness of their musical sensitivity and for their research into the historical sources.

She obtains her soloist diploma with summa cum laude in 1999 at the Musikakademie Basel after studying with Raphaël Oleg. In 2002 she starts specializing in baroque violin with Chiara Banchini at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and obtains in 2005 her diploma in baroque music with summa cum laude. She receives in 2003 the first prizes of the Förderpreiswettbewerbs der Konzertgesellschaft in Münich, of the Alte Musiktreff in Berlin and of the Premio Bonporti, the first competition for baroque violin, as well as a scholarship from the pharmaceutical Swiss company Novartis to work one year at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 2005.

Leila Schayegh was for several years a member of L’Ensemble 415 of Chiara Banchini and plays as first violin for La Risonanza of Fabio Bonizzoni. She has been playing in concerts and recordings with René Jacobs, Andrea Marcon, Andreas Scholl, Maria Kristina Kiehr, Vaclav Luks, Friederike Heumann and Marcel Ponseele, and regularly works with her partners Jörg Halubek and Ilze Grudule. Her soloist concerts bring her to the Festival Alte Musik in Zürich, the Festival Internacional de Organo in León and the Bach Festival in Lausanne. She is invited as soloist in the concert series Musica e Poesia a San Maurizio in Milan, Le Nuove Musiche in Münich and to the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles. Further invitations bring her to Holland, Germany, Israel, Lettonia, the Ukraine and Lithuania. In September 2010 she takes over the baroque violin class at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis as successor of Chiara Banchini.

Her research activities related to the musical practice study in particular historical styles of ornamentation, their techniques and influence on the emotional quality of the interpretation. This approach appears in her preface of a new edition of Franz Benda’s sonatas, and in her research on the interaction between music and dance of the 17th century at the Berne University of the Arts.

Her discography appears on the labels Glossa, Pan Classics, Zigzag Territoires, Ambronay Editions and Harmonia Mundi.