Orchestra members

Frank-Michael Erben is one of the most versatile artists of his generation. Growing up in a family of musicians in Leipzig, he gave his first public concerts at the age of 9 and was appointed first concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra at the age of 21 while still studying with Prof. Klaus Hertel at the Leipzig University of Music “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy”. Since then, Erben has performed as a soloist in Europe, America and the Middle East. 

He has made guest appearances with numerous orchestras in Germany, the Athens State Orchestra, the Orchestra Municipal Santiago de Chile and the Herzliya Chamber Orchestra in Israel. With the Gewandhaus Orchestra alone, he has performed violin concertos by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Korngold, as well as Schubert's Rondo in A major, Ravel's “Zigane” and Saint-Saëns' “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso”.

 He has been accompanied by conductors such as Kurt Masur, Sir Neville Mariner, Herbert Blomstedt, Riccardo Chailly and Dimitri Kitajenko. Most recently, Erben played Haydn's Sinfonia Concertante under Andris Nelsons in Boston's Symphony Hall. He toured Europe as a soloist with the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. The live recording of this work conducted by Kurt Masur was released on DVD by the Arthaus label. With pianist Alfredo Perl, he recently recorded all of L.v. Beethoven's violin sonatas as a video production. The pianist Charlotte Steppes has been his duo partner since 2023.

The artist gives master classes for violin and chamber music at Wichita State University, the Geidai University of Arts Tokyo, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra Institute and the Beethoven Haus Bonn. He is a guest professor at the Kirishima Music Festival Japan and was a juror at the International ARD Competition in Munich. In addition to his Leipzig commitments, Erben was appointed 1st concertmaster of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra in 2007.

For over 30 years he has been the principal conductor of the Gewandhaus Quartet (founded in 1808) and has performed with this ensemble in Europe, Asia, North and South America, including Paris, London, Brussels, Zurich, Madrid, Athens, New York, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and Shanghai. Among the numerous CD recordings, the complete edition of Beethoven's string quartets was awarded the annual prize of the German Record Critics. Frank-Michael Erben is an honorary member of the Bonn Beethoven Society and, together with the Gewandhaus Quartet, was awarded the International Mendelssohn Prize of the City of Leipzig. Other chamber music partners have included Sabine Meyer, Jo Jo Ma, Rudolf Buchbinder and Gautier Capucon.

Erben has also been a successful conductor for several years. In addition to various German orchestras, including the Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Magdeburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Musikalische Komödie, the Detmold Chamber Orchestra and the Babelsberg Film Orchestra, he has also conducted the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Herzliya Chamber Orchestra. From 2009 to 2014 he was chief conductor of the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra. 

The artist plays a violin made by the Italian violin maker J.B. Guadagnini (Milan) in 1755.