Kira van der Woerd | Young & Inspired - Coffee Concert

Talent Kira van der Woerd will play Michael Kugel's Sonata Poeme, composed especially in memory of the victims of WWII, on May 4. Moreover, it has a nice personal meaning for Kira, as she has worked with the composer herself and he is the teacher of her former teacher. She will also play the piece Baal Shem by Ernest Bloch, three pieces composed from a Jewish tradition.

About Kira van der Woerd

Kira van der Woerd (b. 2005) is studying violin with Pavel Berman for her Bachelor in Music at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana in Lugano, Switzerland, beginning in 2023. She was a pupil of Julia Dinerstein in The Hague for fourteen years. Both solo, and in ensembles, she has taken lessons and master classes throughout Europe and in the U.S. since 2011, with Dora Schwarzberg, Mihaela Martin, Boris Garlitsky, Jacques Rouvier, Alexandra Soumm, Krysztof Wegrzyn and Daniel Rowland, among others. She has performed at the concert series MuCH Surprise! 2024 and the Musica Mundi Course and Festival 2020 & 2021 in Waterloo (Belgium), the International Holland Music Sessions 2023 in Bergen, the Bowdoin International Music Festival 2023 in Brunswick (USA), and the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival 2018.

Her successes include at the Dutch Violin Competition the 2nd prize Oskar Back in 2024 and the 1st prize Iordens A in 2018 and at several violin competitions the special prize for the best interpretation of contemporary music. At the Princess Christina Competition 2021, together with pianist Philip Karmanov, she won 3rd prize at the National Finals and thus a recital at the Tonhalle in Zurich. Kira has soloed with the Residentie Orkest, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra, among others. She receives financial support from the VandenEnde Foundation, the Cultuurfonds and the NL Talenten Fonds.

Concert Series Young & Inspired 

As a musician, you have to put in flight hours. Not only at home in your attic room to master all the techniques, but also on a stage. How does it feel to be on a stage, what kind of concentration do you need, how is the interaction with live audience, how do you want to present yourself? These are all aspects you can't just practice at home. You need a stage and an audience for that. From the need to offer young talent and young professionals a stage, the concert series Jong & Bevlogen (Young & Inspired) was born. This concert series came about in cooperation with our guest-programmer violinist Lonneke van Straalen.