“The audience burst into spontaneous and repeated applause after the first movement, which the soloist had crowned with a brilliantly played cadenza. And where could you hear the Larghetto played as divinely beautifully as by Milwidsky?”
- Süddeutsche Zeitung (Beethoven Violin Concerto)
British violinist Mathilde Milwidsky, praised by The Strad’s Charlotte Gardner for “comprehensively nailing each new stylistic and emotional universe as she went” was nominated as one of Classic FM’s Rising Stars in 2023 and named One to Watch by Gramophone Magazine. She performs widely across Europe as a soloist and chamber musician. Highlights of the 2025/26 season include her concerto debut at Cadogan Hall, London (National Symphony Orchestra), recital debut at La Folle Journée de Nantes in France, a recital tour of Scotland with celebrated pianist and composer Huw Watkins and Chausson’s Concert for violin, piano and string quartet at the Residenz, Munich.
Performances in recent seasons include several concerts at Kings Place, London - a recital as part of the Venus Unwrapped series and Mendelssohn’s D minor Violin Concerto with the National Youth String Orchestra, Mozart Concerto No 3 at Cheltenham Town Hall with the National Symphony Orchestra and the world premiere of Wild Swans by Sally Beamish at St John’s Smith Square as part of her Young Artist Residency there. She has further performed as a soloist at leading concert halls including Wigmore Hall, Flagey Brussels, Cadogan Hall and Royal Festival Hall. Upcoming highlights include a debut concerto disc with Resonus Classics planned for 2027 with conductor George Vass, Mendelssohn Concerto at Cadogan Hall and recitals at Holywell Music Room, Queen’s University Belfast and a return Scottish tour with Huw Watkins.
Mathilde was the sole British violinist to be selected for the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition, during which the Belgian national newspaper Le Soir praised her performance for its ’mastery and musicality’. Further successes include Third Prize at the Windsor Festival International String Competition 2019, First Prize and Audience Prize at the Aurora Music Competition (Sweden) 2018, First Prize of the Royal Overseas League Music Competition (String Section) 2018, semi-finalist laureate of the International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition, Hanover (2018) and prizewinner of both the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben’s Musikinstrumentfonds Competition and the Bundesweiter Hochschulwettbewerb of the Peter-Pirazzi-Stiftung.
Mathilde holds a wide-spanning active repertoire, with lesser-known works taking their place alongside the more mainstream violin literature, including such composers as Bacewicz, Skalkottas, Honegger and Lekeu. She also enjoys collaborations with some of today’s leading composers, including Brett Dean, Sally Beamish, Mark Simpson, Roxana Panufnik, Cheryl Frances Hoad and Garth Knox. Notable world premieres include Wild Swans (2018, St John’s Smith Square) by Sally Beamish, Joseph Phibbs’s Violin Sonata (2020) alongside pianist Clare Hammond (Presteigne Festival) and Deborah Pritchard’s Liberty (2023) for soprano, violin and piano alongside Huw Watkins and Ruby Hughes (Two Moors Festival).
Chamber music holds a special place in Mathilde’s musical life, and she has enjoyed collaborations with such artists as Avi Avital, Anthony Marwood, Christian Poltéra, Roderick Williams MBE and members of Quatuor Ébène and Artemis Quartet. She has been invited to festivals including La Folle Journée de Nantes, Krzyżowa, Verbier, Edinburgh, Musikdorf Ernen, IMS Prussia Cove and Fränkische Musiktage.
Her debut CD - the world premiere recordings of Agnes Zimmerman’s three Sonatas for violin and piano - was released on Toccata Classics alongside pianist Sam Haywood in 2020. She was subsequently named Classical Music Magazine’s Artist of the Month and the disc received high praise from critics - “Milwidsky is simply terrific, her tone, technique and temperament the ideal mix” (Fanfare magazine, US); “great conviction by honest and talented performers” (Crescendo magazine, France). Her discography also includes the Beethoven Romances for Violin and Orchestra with the National Symphony Orchestra (Guild Records, 2020); Jorge Meija Preludes for Piano Sextet (SONY, 2026) and song arrangements alongside Roderick Williams (Champs Hill Records, 2026). She has been a featured artist on Scala Radio’s ‘One to Watch’, BBC Radio 3 ‘In Tune’, Deutschlandfunk Kultur’s Hörprobe, Radio Swiss Classic, Yle Radio Suomi and Hessischer Rundfunk.
Born in London in 1994, of Brazilian, French and Lithuanian ancestry, Mathilde took her first violin lessons at the age of 6 with Ilya Ushakov and subsequently with Viktoria Grigoreva and David Takeno as a Tsukanov Scholar at the Royal College of Music Junior Department. She then studied under György Pauk on a full scholarship at London’s Royal Academy of Music before undertaking Masters and Konzertexam degrees under Prof. Mi-kyung Lee at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München, funded by the Deutschlandstipendium scholarship. She has received guidance from Midori, Leonidas Kavakos and Augustin Dumay, also attending the Verbier Festival Academy’s Soloist & Chamber Music Programme in both 2021 and 2022, as one of only seven violinists chosen worldwide.
As of September 2024, Mathilde was appointed Professor of Violin at the Royal College of Music, London.
She plays a violin by Sebastian Dalinger (Vienna, 1798)