Manuel Vioque-Judde has established himself over the years as one of the most captivating violists on the French and international music scene.
 

Through a repertoire ranging from early music to contemporary premieres, including the great concertos for viola (Bartók, Walton, Berlioz, Britten, Vaughan Williams, Mozart…), he has forged a singular identity as a soloist unlike any other, making the viola far more than an instrument: a sovereign and unmistakable voice.

 

An artistic identity asserted from the very beginning, which has allowed him to become the first French musician to be laureate of both the Primrose Competition (Los Angeles, 2014) and the Tertis Competition (Isle of Man, 2016).

 

A guest soloist the world over, he has performed notably with the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie (Belgium), the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra (Venezuela), the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic), the Vogtland Philharmonic Orchestra and the Elbland Philharmonie Sachsen (Germany), the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra (United States), Camerata Nordica (Sweden) and the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra (Japan).

 

A sought-after chamber musician, he has collaborated with artists such as Augustin Dumay, Kit Armstrong, Jonathan Fournel, Ilya Gringolts, Gary Hoffman, Victor Julien-Laferrière, Liya Petrova, Gidon Kremer, Alexandre Kantorow, Aurélien Pascal, Christian Tetzlaff and the Trio Wanderer, and performs as a member of the Trio Arnold and the Quatuor Hermès.

 

He appears on the most prestigious stages, including the Philharmonie de Paris, Bozar in Brussels, the Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Prinzregententheater in Munich, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Seiji Ozawa Hall in Boston and the Symphony Hall in Osaka.

 

He can also be heard at major festivals: Verbier, the Folles Journées in Nantes and Tokyo, the Festival International de La Roque d’Anthéron, the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival, the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence, the Tanglewood Music Festival, Chamber Music Connects the World in Kronberg, and the Festival des Jeunes Solistes Européens in Venezuela.

 

His influence extends beyond performance alone: artistic director of the Just Classik Festival in Troyes since 2018, an international chamber music festival he has helped to shape, he is regularly called upon to conceive artistic projects in which he becomes the musical centre of gravity, bringing together artists and repertoire to create coherent and distinctive experiences.

 

Trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, his playing was further refined through contact with violists such as Tatjana Masurenko, Tabea Zimmermann, Lawrence Power and Miguel Da Silva.

 

A long-standing member of the Seiji Ozawa International Academy, he carries a deep artistic imprint from that experience: the guidance of the Japanese conductor, solo performances under his baton, and the teaching of Pamela Frank, Nobuko Imai, and Sadao Harada have profoundly shaped his musical identity. He is now a senior member of the Academy.

 

Manuel Vioque-Judde is an associate artist of the Chapelle Musicale Reine Élisabeth and the Fondation Singer-Polignac, a prize-winner of the Fondation Banque Populaire and an Adami Classical Revelation.

 

He plays on two violas by the German luthier Stephan von Baehr.