María Dueñas

Violin

©Sonja Müller

General Management

Biography

Spanish violinist María Dueñas has emerged as a luminous talent in classical music, captivating audiences with her extraordinary range of tonal colours, impeccable technical prowess, and interpretations that blend artistic maturity with bold expressiveness.

Her meteoric rise led to an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. a significant milestone in her burgeoning career. María Dueñas' third album, Homage to Heifetz, will be released in August 2026. Recorded with Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, it pays tribute to the legendary Jascha Heifetz, combining Lalo's Symphonie espagnole and Korngold's Violin Concerto - two works closely associated with the great violinist's legacy. Following the success of her debut recording, Beethoven and Beyond, which earned her the Opus Klassik Award for Young Talent of the Year, she received equal international acclaim for her second album, an ambitious exploration of Paganini's iconic 24 Caprices. For this recording, she was distinguished as Young Artist and Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2025 Gramophone Classical Music Awards.

María Dueñas has also claimed first prizes at some of the world's leading violin competitions, including the Menuhin Competition, the Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition, and the Zhuhai International Mozart Competition. Her artistry has been recognised with numerous further distinctions, among them her selection as a BBC New Generation Artist, Focus Artist at Rheingau Musik Festival, and the Princess of Girona Arts and Letters Award.

As globally recognized soloist, María Dueñas performs with the leading orchestras of Europe, North America and Asia, such as the Vienna Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Munich Philharmonic, Bamberger Symphoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Accademia di Santa Cecilia and Orchestre de Paris. She regularly collaborates with outstanding conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Christian Thielemann, Herbert Blomstedt, Alan Gilbert, Paavo Järvi, Vasily Petrenko, Marin Alsop, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Karina Canellakis, Elim Chan, Gustavo Gimeno, Antonio Pappano, Manfred Honeck, Lahav Shani, Andris Nelsons, Daniel Harding, Kent Nagano und Zubin Mehta.

María Dueñas enjoys a longstanding artistic partnership with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, marked by a series of significant collaborations, including a concert at the Hollywood Bowl's centennial celebrations, and the world premiere of Gabriela Ortiz's violin concerto Altar de Cuerda , with subsequent performances across North America and Europe. The recording of the concerto forms part of the album Revolución diamantina , which received three GRAMMY Awards in 2025.

A versatile artist also dedicated to composing, her works include Homage 1770 for solo violin, published by Ricordi, Farewell, a solo piano piece, and cadenzas for numerous violin concertos. She is also committed to performing contemporary music, and is much in demand as chamber musician with partners such as Matthias Goerne, Itamar Golan, Renaud Capuçon, Yo-Yo Ma, Denis Kozhukin und Alexander Malofeev.

In 2024, María Dueñas portrayed the reincarnation of violinist Kathleen Parlow in the film Measures for a Funeral directed by Sofia Bohdanowicz. The movie featured Johan Halvorsen's long-lost Violin Concerto op. 28, introducing the rediscovered work to a wider audience through her compelling performance with the Orchestre Métropolitain under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The concert recording and movie soundtrack are scheduled for release on Deutsche Grammophon.

Highlights of the 2026/27 season include performances with the Bamberg Symphony under Jakub Hrůša in Bamberg and Hamburg, Philharmonia Orchestra under Santtu-Matias Rouvali in London and Munich, and a return to Staatskapelle Berlin under Christian Thielemann. María Dueñas also continues her acclaimed artistic collaborations with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, as well as with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Orchestre Métropolitain. The season is further marked by several major international tours, beginning with performances in South Korea and Taiwan with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Gustavo Gimeno. Together with the Camerata Salzburg, María Dueñas makes her South American debut, followed by concerts in Austria and the Canary Islands with the Wiener Symphoniker under Petr Popelka, and concluding with a tour alongside the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Colombia under Andrés Orozco-Estrada - another longstanding artistic partner - taking her to Germany, Vienna, Zurich and Paris..

María Dueñas plays the Giambattista Guadagnini violin of 1779 from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben as well as the Antonio Stradivarius “Michelangelo” (1718), on generous loan from the Karolina Blaberg Foundation.

This biography may not be published in edited/abbreviated form without prior consent of KünstlerSekretariat am Gasteig.

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News

María Dueñas on tour

María Dueñas at the Aspen Music Festival

Klassik am Odeonsplatz

Debut: María Dueñas with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

María Dueñas at the Rheingau Music Festival in Wiesbaden

María Dueñas in Cologne

Calendar

5. August 2026 - 20:00

Ludwigsburg, Forum am Schlosspark

Johannes Brahms: Konzert für Violine und Orchester D-Dur op. 77

Info & Tickets

7. August 2026 - 20:00

Bozen, Teatro Comunale Bolzano

Johannes Brahms: Konzert für Violine und Orchester D-Dur op. 77

Info & Tickets

20. August 2026 - 20:00

Santander, Palacio de Festivales de Cantabria

Max Bruch: Konzert für Violine und Orchester Nr. 1 g-moll op. 26

http://www.operan.se/" target="_blank">Info & Tickets

We do not guarantee the accuracy of the information.

Gallery

Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is a telling choice for Dueñas. The work demands both technical virtuosity and a sophisticated depth of interpretive maturity that is rare for a violinist of her age. Having featured the concerto on her 2023 debut album, with her own cadenzas, Dueñas brings a mesmerising command to the work. What strikes most is her uncompromising lyricism and impeccable control of sound, which draw the audience in to every note. Her self-composed cadenzas bear her distinctive imprint, balancing technical brilliance with poetic sensitivity. Each phrase is luminous, projecting above the orchestral textures throughout the concerto despite Hamer Hall’s notoriously challenging acoustics.

Limelight

Also Sprach Zarathustra (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra), Chai Jie Low, 16.03.2026

The evening opened with an impressive Philharmonic debut by the young Spanish violinist María Dueñas. Delivering a radiant rendition of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto – a work she performed with Honeck and the Vienna Symphony on a 2023 album – her elegant artistry and glowing tone were completely mesmerizing. Played at a decidedly measured tempo, the opening of the Allegro first movement sounded especially gentle and serene, leading into a unique, completely captivating performance. A particularly lyrical Larghetto, dispatched with graceful tenderness and warmth, was followed by a genial, dancing finale. Dueñas’ virtuosity was most evident in the cadenzas – she played her own for all three movements – where she displayed total technical mastery, poetic sensitivity and a distinctive creative voice. In response to the audience’s enthusiastic ovation, she offered an encore: a poignant, highly refined rendition of Franz von Vecsey’s quintessentially romantic Valse triste.

Bachtrack

Lyricism and drama from Maria Dueñas, Manfred Honeck and the New York Philharmonic, Susan Stempleski, 31.01.2026

Maria Dueñas’s treatment of Paganini is wondrous for its musicality. Even more of a pleasure, though, is this album’s second half highlighting other composers’ caprices, including Gabriela Ortiz’s recent “De Cuerda y Madera,” recorded with the pianist Alexander Malofeev. A rhapsodic journey, it grooves, seduces and sings. Above all, it inspires awe.

New York Times

Joshua Barone, Best Classical Music Albums of 2025, 18.12.2025

María Dueñas a en effet cette particularité de trouver une intention musicale dans la moindre note. Son tout récent enregistrement des Caprices de Paganini, à cet égard, est stupéfiant de créativité. Son écoute génère une sensation qui s’apparente à de l’ivresse pour l’auditeur. Son tempérament ardent, et sa tendance à l’hyper-expressivité, pouvait faire craindre le pire dans cette œuvre d’un romantisme exacerbé. Mais avec son incroyable énergie, que l’on pourrait qualifier de sanguine mais qu’elle maîtrise avec superbe, elle évite les excès de bons sentiments. Son vibrato est de braise, ses glissades sont magnétiques, et elle varie les places et les vitesses d’archet avec un sens musical infaillible.

Crescendo Magazine

Champagne avant l’heure à Radio France, avec Manfred Honeck, l’ONF et Johann Strauss (et une flamboyante María Dueñas) Le 19 octobre 2025, Pierre Carrive

Manche Werke, so scheint es, warten nur darauf, bis endlich jemand kommt, der zeigt, was wirklich in ihnen steckt. Für das Violinkonzert von Erich Wolfgang Korngold ist das María Duenas. Die Spanierin, noch keine 21 Jahre alt, entwirft eine vollgültige Persönlichkeit, widerspenstig, mit charaktervollem, bisweilen gar säurehaltigem statt lukullischem Ton. Die Solostimme des Konzerts mag träumerisch lyrisch getönt sein, doch María Duenas kann sich auch geräuschvoll durchsetzen, resolut austeilen, die Spiccato-Passagen aufspießen, als ob ein Strawinsky sie geschrieben hätte. Korngold hat in diesem Werk musikalische Themen aufgegriffen, die er in Partituren für Hollywood-Filme verwendet hatte. Schwer zu sagen, ob er bei der kompositorisch kunstvollen Verarbeitung an eine bestimmte Schauspielerin gedacht hat. Bei María Duenas fühlt man sich eher an eine trotzig souveräne Katharine Hepburn denn an eine verliebt leidende Ingrid Bergman erinnert. Sogar den biografischen Hintergrund dieser Person lässt sie erahnen: Duenas artikuliert auch längere Phrasen mit Nachdruck durch, sägt in der Höhe so unbarmherzig, dass gleich zwei Bogenhaare reißen, und wenn sie einmal gleichsam einen charmant klingenden Augenaufschlag macht, sollte ihr Gegenüber sich dennoch nicht in Sicherheit wiegen. Einfach furios.

Abendzeitung München

Michael Bastian Weiß, Abendzeitung München, 22.10.2023

At 22, María Dueñas brought a striking combination of daredevil technique and musical maturity to Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. Her phrasing in the opening movement was elegant yet fearless, with finely spun lines that never lost momentum or tonal clarity, even in the most exposed passages. The cadenza, delivered with crisp articulation and a sense of inner direction, emerged as a natural extension of the movement rather than a display set apart. In the Andante, Dueñas played with a restrained lyricism that avoided sentimentality, allowing the long lines to unfold with ease and clarity. The finale, impeccably clean and fleet, also favoured control over abandon. … For a BSO debut, it was impressive not just in its polish, but in its poise: a performance that conveyed both the freshness of youth and the self-awareness of an artist whose sense of form and restraint belied her youth.

bachtrack

María Dueñas makes an impressive Tanglewood debut with Mendelssohn, Edward Sawa-Segal, 27.07.2025

Bei Licht besehen handelt es sich … um ein fünfsätziges Violinkonzert, in dem der Solist alles an geigerischen Finessen und funkelnden Einlagen aus sich herausholen kann, zu dem er fähig ist. Das ließ sich hier die junge Geigerin Maria Dueñas nicht zweimal sagen und glänzte vor allem mit fabelhafter, technischer Perfektion, über die man nur staunen konnte. Und dennoch hatte ihr Spiel Seele, was besonders wichtig war. Es stellte sich der Eindruck ein, dass sie mit Haut und Haaren mit diesem Lalo verwachsen war. Irgendwelche spieltechnischen Hürden brauchte Dueñas nicht zu fürchten und tat es mit der größten Selbstverständlichkeit auch nicht.

Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten

Mareile Hanns, "Spanisches Gold und böhmische Melancholie", 07.10.2024

María Dueñas gefällt mit schönem, aber nie ins Süßliche abgleitenden Ton, edelsteinpräziser Phrasierung und maximaler Präsenz. Eine Künstlerin, die stets die Balance zwischen spieltechnischer Brillanz und Tiefe des Ausdrucks zu wahren versteht und die Korngolds akustischen Breitwand-Sound so zelebriert, dass jeder Anflug von Kitsch außen vor bleibt. Diese traumwandlerisch sichere Gratwanderung begeistert, weil das Spiel der Spanierin, die in Wien studiert, auch in den virtuosesten Passagen stets unprätentiös bleibt.

Erlanger Nachrichten

Hans von Draminski: Die Brillanz und der schöne Ton, in: Erlanger Nachrichten, 06.10.2023

Beethoven & Beyond: She has really earned this recording. And she’s certainly got everything it takes to be both a superstar and a musician of the first order: imagination, intelligence, flawless technique, interpretive insight beyond her years, a temperament fiery and passionate yet graceful and lyrical, and a view of the work that is at once thoughtfully personal and highly individual without being in the least idiosyncratic or courting difference for difference’s sake [...]. I’ve been listening to this concerto since I was a junior in college, have acquired several recordings along the way (and listened to countless more); yet having listened to it now four times all the way through, I can’t think of one that has given me greater pleasure, few as much. 24 Caprices: [Her] Nicolò Gagliano violin [,] brilliant on the upper ones, from which Dueñas produces a kaleidoscopically dazzling range of color, sonority, touch, and dynamic shading, a variety directly mirrored in her gloriously variegated interpretive approaches to and characterizations of the individual numbers [...]. Like the pieces themselves, she’s everywhere spontaneous, impetuous, unbridled, impulsive, sometimes even reckless yet without ever losing control. Even better, she often sounds like she’s having fun [...]. Dueñas’s 24 Caprices is on every level the most exciting new album I’ve heard so far this year.

Tracking Angle

Paul Seydor, "A Star is born", Tracking Angle, 24.06.2025

Maria Duenas‘ singuläre Interpretation der Paganini-Caprices (ergänzt um die in der künstlerischen Nachfolge entstandenen Werke) steht nun in einer stolzen Reihe auf Augenhöhe mit außergewöhnlichen Pionierleistungen, wie wir sie von Salvatore Accardo, Nathan Milstein (berühmt geworden ist seine Paganiniana – Variationen über Caprice Op. 1) oder Itzhak Perlman kennen. Anhören und genießen!

Online Merker

Dr. Ingobert Waltenberger, 11.02.2025