Biography

Twenty-five-year-old American violinist William Hagen was the third prize winner of the 2015 Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition. A native of Salt Lake City, UT, he first heard the violin when he was three and began taking lessons at age four with Natalie Reed, and later, Deborah Moench. At age ten, he began lessons with Robert Lipsett at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, where he studied until the age of seventeen. After studying at the Juilliard School for two years with Itzhak Perlman, Mr. Hagen returned to Los Angeles to continue working with Mr. Lipsett at the Colburn Conservatory. He is currently enrolled at the Kronberg Academy in Germany, where he is a student of Christian Tetzlaff. Mr. Hagen is an alumnus of the Verbier Academy in Switzerland, the Perlman Music Program, and the Aspen Music Festival, where he spent many summers.

Mr. Hagen’s 2017-18 season featured debuts with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony, return engagements with the Utah Symphony and the Fort Worth Symphony, and recitals with pianist Albert Cano Smit in Chicago, Aspen, Darmstadt, and at the University of Florida. Highlights of recent seasons include debuts with the Oregon Symphony and at the Colmar Festival in France; his Tokyo recital debut and recitals in Paris, Brussels, Virginia, and the Ravinia Festival; and chamber music concerts with Steven Isserlis at Wigmore Hall in London, Tabea Zimmermann at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, and in New York City with the Jupiter Chamber Players. He has also played chamber music with Gidon Kremer, Steven Isserlis, and Christian Tetzlaff at the Chamber Music Connects the World Festival in Kronberg, Germany.

Mr. Hagen performs on the 1735 “Sennhauser” Guarnerius del Gesù violin, on generous loan from the Stradivari Society of Chicago. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut at these performances.

(July 2018)