Sara Trobäck

Swedish violinist Sara Trobäck gained considerable publicity as a youthful star in Sweden and beyond. In 2002 she became the first female concertmaster of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and has developed a solo career, issuing major albums of Swedish repertory on the Naxos and Chandos labels. Trobäck, in full Sara Katarina Trobäck Hesselink, was born in 1978 in Örebro in central Sweden. She took up the violin at age five, studying with Sten-Göran Thorell and then Tibor Fülep. In 1994 she enrolled at the Gothenburg College of Music, moving two years later to the Royal Academy of Music London for studies with György Pauk. Taking master classes whenever she could, she benefited from encounters with Joshua Bell, Ruggiero Ricci, Cho-Liang Lin, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Yehudi Menuhin, and, most famously, Maxim Vengerov: her lesson with him was filmed and shown on television around Britain and Europe. Trobäck toured Sweden frequently during this period, appearing with the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, among others, and performing in 1993 for the Swedish royal family at the Polar Music Prize ceremonies. She won a variety of prizes herself, including the Swedish Music Festival Association's Artist of the Year award. In 1999 she made her London debut, playing Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, with the London Soloists' Chamber Orchestra. After graduating from the Royal Academy in 2001 and landing the coveted Gothenburg spot a year later, Trobäck continued to develop her career in new directions, appearing in the U.S. at the La Jolla SummerFest concerts featuring young artists in 2002 and 2003, and co-founding Trio Poseidon, with which she has continued to perform. She has also continued to perform with the Gothenburg Symphony and has made several well-regarded recordings: of Kurt Atterberg's Suite No. 3 for violin, viola, and string orchestra for Chandos, of the same work with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra for Naxos, both in 1996, and with Trio Poseidon of Beethoven's Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56, for Chandos in 2010. In 2018 she appeared on a BIS album of works by Wilhelm Stenhammar, performing the Two Sentimental Romances for violin and orchestra, Op. 28. ~ James Manheim