Bernhard Forck

Over a career dating to the early ’80s, Bernhard Forck has combined a reverence for early music with an equally passionate appreciation for contemporary works. Born in 1963, the German musician started taking violin lessons at age five but found his calling after discovering the Baroque violin and its repertoire while at university. In 1982, he joined the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, an ensemble for which he later served as a concertmaster, which kicked off a decades-long outlet for his deep research into historical performance. Post-graduation, Forck joined the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and later founded the modern-leaning Manon Quartet Berlin, which became part of Tanglewood’s Quartet in Residence programme. Starting in 2007, he spent 12 years as the musical director of the Handel Festival Orchestra, and in 2019 he demonstrated his flowing dynamic style on J.S. Bach: Violin Concertos with fellow violinist Isabelle Faust for Harmonia Mundi.