Meret Lüthi

Spot on: dotted outfit

Meret Lüthi, an inspiring and charismatic violinist from Berne, knows how to cast a musical and verbal spell over her fellow musicians and the audience. Since 2008, she has been shaping Bern’s internationally active Orchestra for Early Music, Les Passions de l'Âme, with her unmistakable signature as artistic director, dramaturge and concertmaster. She appears with her orchestra at the Lucerne Festival, the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg, the Schwetzinger Festspiele and the Musikfest Stuttgart. She performs with artists such as Dorothee Oberlinger, Simone Kermes, Nuria Rial and Kristian Bezuidenhout.

Meret Lüthi received her training in her hometown with the violinists Monika Urbaniak-Lisik and Eva Zurbrügg and obtained both teaching and concert diplomas with distinctions. Her string quartet studies took her to Basel to Walter Levin, and she studied baroque violin with Anton Steck in Trossingen.

As a sought-after specialist in early music, Meret Lüthi is a guest on Radio SRF 2 Kultur, Radio Suisse Romande Espace 2, Südwestrundfunk SWR 2 and Bayerischer Rundfunk BR, and teaches baroque violin and historically informed performance practice at the Bern University of the Arts. In 2017 she was awarded the Music Prize of the Canton of Bern and in 2020 the Culture Prize of the Bürgi-Willert Foundation for her many years of outstanding musical activities. Her artistic work is documented on Sony Music Switzerland, Ramée and Dynamic, and was awarded the Diapason d'or in 2013 and 2017 as well as an OPUS KLASSIK and Premio Abbiati in 2020 and the CHOC de l'Année 2023 by Classica. In 2024, she was awarded the «Golden Bow» bestowed by the Foundation of the Swiss School of Violin Making in Brienz.

Press quotes:

Bachtrack (Jens Klier) 19.09.2020

«...in the «Schutzengel (guardian angel)»-Passacaglia from the Rosary Sonatas, Lüthi [entered] the culminating soloistic climax. Eyes closed (as well as those of her ensemble colleagues), she led us all with her into the prayer which, in its masterful sense of inner impulse, harrowing emotionality and magnificent miraculous power, blurred the senses.»

Toccata (Wolfgang Reihing) July/August 2020

«The pulsating centre of this recording is once again the ensemble leader and baroque violinist Meret Lüthi, who here effortlessly combines virtuoso (secular) and spiritual (sacred) aspects of this music with a pithy tone and sparkling temperament.»

WDR3 (Jan Ritterstaedt) 21.07.2020

«Impressively and with great technical precision, soloist Meret Lüthi lets the arrows whirr on her period violin.»

BR Klassik (Thorsten Preuß) 15.09.2019

«And she [Meret Lüthi] is probably the most exciting baroque violinist of the present [...] When Meret Lüthi meets Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, then the sparks fly.»

SWR2 about: Meret Lüthi, 29.09.2019

«Meret Lüthi is a creativity junkie, always struggling for the personal expression of her truth. The front woman of the Bernese baroque ensemble Les Passions de l'Âme, which she co-founded in 2007, captivates audiences with her energetic and fresh drive.»

Stuttgarter Nachrichten (Susanne Benda) 06.09.2018

«...Treats from the delicatessen department of historically informed performance practice: with a brilliant, immensely sound-sensitive and also eminently nimble concertmaster Meret Lüthi...»

kulturtipp (Christian Berzins) 20.08. 2014

«Violinist Meret Lüthi is the head of the fabulous Bernese baroque orchestra Les Passions de l'Âme, which is causing a sensation. From Berne, she is conquering the wide baroque world.»