About
Lukas Johannes Hagen (8 May 1962 in Salzburg) is an Austrian Violinist and university teacher.
Lukas Hagen is the oldest son of a Solo violist and concertmaster of the Mozarteum orchestra, Salzburg. Like his siblings Clemens, Angelika and Veronika, Lukas was musically promoted by his father early on. Hagen studied violin at the Mozarteum Salzburg with Helmut Zehetmair and graduated with honours in 1983. After his studies, he received private lessons with Gidon Kremer for a year, and studied with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Walter Levin of LaSalle String Quartet. The participation in juries of international competitions and master classes allowed him to work with artists such as Oleg Maisenberg, Heinrich Schiff, András Schiff and Vladimir Ashkenazi.
Lukas Hagen at the laudation during the award ceremony at the International Mozart competition in 2018
As a soloist he appeared at the Salzburg Mozart week and the Salzburg festival. His concerts in Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, the USA, Japan, Italy and Great Britain made him internationally known. Hagen has also been concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe for seven years and is a Violinist in the Serapion Ensemble. He was particularly well known for his interpretations of Dmitry Shostakovich and César Francks.
Since 1999, Lukas Hagen, Professor of violin and chamber music at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. From 24 November 2006, he was also vice-rector of the University and responsible for the Coordination of artistic projects. In February 2018, he took the chair of the jury at the 13th International Mozart Competition in the string quartet category.
Together with the Hagen quartet, which he leads as the first violinist, he won several first prizes at international competitions in Portsmouth and Évian. In addition, there has been an exclusive contract with the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft since 1985.
Together with his wife Iris, Lukas Hagen founded the folk and chamber music festival "Hagen Open Festival" in 2004 at the castle Feistritz near Vienna.
Lukas Hagen has acquired a modern violin from the workshop of Stefan-Peter Greiner. At times he played Stradivari "ex Rewark" from 1724 from the collection of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank. Currently (2018) he plays a Stradivari from the year 1734.