Faculty

Prof.

Luz Leskowitz

Luz Leskowitz studied at the Mozarteum and at the Music Academy in Vienna, with Ernst Wallfisch in Salzburg and Lucerne and with Yehudi Menuhin in London. After his debuts in London, New York, Vienna, Berlin, Milan etc., he went on concert tours throughout Europe, to Asia, Africa, the USA, South America, Russia and Japan. A tour through the USA as a soloist with the Camerata Academica Salzburg under Antonio Janigro was particularly successful. Leskowitz was and is a guest in concert halls such as New York (Carnegie Recital Hall, Town Hall and Lincoln Center), London (Wigmore Hall, Festival Hall), Vienna (Musikverein, Konzerthaus), Milano (Sala Verdi). Paris (Salle Gaveau), Prague (Rudolfinum), Salzburg (Mozarteum, Festspielhaus), Linz (Bruckner Hall), Washington (Kennedy Center), Moscow (Conservatory), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw) and many more. The intensive contact with Ernst Wallfisch and Yehudi Menuhin soon awakened his special love for chamber music. Strongly influenced by the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Luz Leskowitz founded his first music festival in 1970, the "Harzburger Musiktage". Other international festivals followed in Germany (Music Festival Week at Berleburg Castle, Dannenberg Music Festival, Black Forest Music Days, Andernach Music Festival at Namedy Castle, Rothenfeld Music Festival, Maifest Rellinger Kirche), in Austria (Schloss Kammer Music Festival Week) and in Romania (Klausenburg).  In 1979, as part of the Harzburg Music Days, he formed his own ensemble, the "Salzburg Soloists", with whom he gave concerts worldwide. This later grew into the “Salzburg Mozart Players” and the “Salzburg Soloist Trio”. Radio and television recordings in various countries, LP and CD recordings were made; solo and chamber music for "Cetra", "Syrinx", "Mirabell" (including Schubert's "Forelle" with El Bacha), "Arte Nova" (Brahms Sextet), "Sony/Demusica", "EMI Classics", "BIS" (Sweden - with Sharon Bezaly Mozart's flute quartets), Sereno Music/Mirabell (Mozart & Franck with Misa Hasegawa) and "Brillant"  (First recording of the Gran Partita, nine strings, together with the Amati Ensemble). Together with Hermann Baumann, Luz Leskowitz founded the first and only "natural horn competition" as part of the Harzburg Music Days, 1991 he took over the management of the Salzburg Palace Concerts, the largest chamber music series in the world with 250 to 350 concerts a year, which he continued until 2016 directed. His duo and chamber music partners were and are, among others, Stefan Askenase, Paul Badura-Skoda, Wilhelm Kempff, Ingrid Haebler, Jörg Demus, Detlef Kraus, Nikita Magaloff, Jeremy Menuhin, Igor Oistrach, Norbert Brainin, Alberto Lysy, David Geringas, Heinrich Schiff, Mstislav Rostropovich, Hermann Baumann, Karl Leister, Hansjörg Schellenberger,  Michala Petri, Sharon Bezaly, Wolfgang Schulz, Hakan Hardenberger, Elly Ameling, the Bartok Quartet, the Kocian Quartet, the Lark Quartet and the Voces Quartet. He is a permanent juror guest in Paris at the Intern. FLAME competition. In 2008 he founded the "Yushnouralsk-Salzburg" competition in Siberia, and in 2010 he was invited to the jury for the "David Oistrakh Competition" in Moscow. In 2012 he founded the "International Chamber Music Competition Mozart-Salzburg" in Tokyo/Ginza, in Russia the festivals "Ufa-Salzburg" and "Chelyabinsk-Salzburg". Luz Leskowitz has been teaching at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg since 2017. He also took part in the film "The Piano Player" by Elfriede Jelinek, together with Isabelle Huppert. In 2007 he received the "Lomonosov Medal" from the Russian Ministry of Culture for services to Russian culture in and outside Russia, in 2010 he was awarded the title "Count" ("Comes de Zapolya") by the Crown Prince of "Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia" and In 2013 he was awarded the title of professor - as a musician and cultural mediator - by the then Austrian Federal President Heinz Fischer.

Luz Leskowitz plays the "Ex-Prihoda Stradivarius" from 1707.