Florian Richter takes up viola professorship in Weimar

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The Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar has announced the appointment of violist Florian Richter as its new viola professor. Richter has been teaching as a viola professor at the University of Music in Nuremberg since 2017 and is currently the principal viola of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden.

’The greatest joy I feel in my appointment as professor of viola at the Weimar University of Music is the opportunity to train new talents in the place that has significantly influenced my musical steps as a viola player,’ said Richter, who is an alumnus of the school. ’I am now happy to be able to be part of the university as a lecturer.

’Being able to accompany the young students on their musical path, develop musical personalities and provide a sound education is an essential part of my work,’ said Richter. ’The motivation for young musicians to create their own creativity is of great relevance to me.’

Ricther was born in 1985 in Oschatz and received his first violin lessons at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Universty of Music and Theater in Leipzig, where he studied with Klaus Hertel. He switched to viola in 2000 and moved to the Schloss Belvedere Weimar music high school to study with Erich Wolfgang Krüger in 2001.

From 2004 to 2014 he won multiple prizes in the ’Jugend musiziert’ competitions, and studied at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar with Ditte Leser and Erich Krüger.

Richter served as principal viola of the Staatskapelle Weimar from 2010 to 2012 and the Stuttgart State Orchestra from 2012 to 2017. He joined the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden in August 2017.

’I am pleased that such a top-class violist - on the one hand as a practitioner in solo positions in top international orchestras, and on the other hand with his enormous teaching experience and success - is moving the centre of his work to us in Weimar,’ said Tim Stolzenburg, the director of the Institute for String Instruments and Harp at the university.

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