Christa Schönfeldinger discovered the world of glass music at the beginning of the 1990s. Viennese-born, she had trained as professional violinist and had already begun orchestral career when a music riddle in the newspaper attracted her attention to a very special instrument: the Glass Armonica. This was to have a determining impact on her further professional life and led to the founding of the Vienna Glass Armonica Duo, together with her husband Gerald, also a violinist.

Thus she rediscovered and revived an instrument which, after enjoying a sensational wave of popularity in the 18th century, had been virtually forgotten for almost two hundred years.

Today Christa Schönfeldinger is one of the world’s leading performers on the glass armonica. She has succeeded in bringing historic playing techniques to a new level of perfection and has also expanded the scope of performance on the glass armonica by adding new techniques and contemporary music aesthetics.

Numerous CD recordings by the Vienna Glass Armonica Duo are offering the public a sensitive symbiosis of poetic chamber music and sound experiences of extraordinary intensity far from the beaten path of the concert world.

Her repertoire ranges from the traditional standard works for glass armonica (W. Mozart, J. Reichardt, C. Röllig, A. Schulz) to orchestral and opera literature (G. Donizetti, C. Saint-Saëns, R. Strauss, J. Widmann) as well as numerous arrangements ( W. Mozart, J. Haydn, E. Grieg, E. Satie, E. Morricone) and avant-garde works (A. Pärt, Ph.Glass).

Christa Schönfeldinger performed with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, NDR and SWR Orchestra, New Tokio Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra Washington. She worked together with Pierre Boulez, Kent Nagano, Christian Thielemann, Christoph Eschenbach, Franz Welser-Möst, Fabio Luisi, Sylvain Camberling, Kirill Petrenko and John Axelrod.

As a soloist and with the Vienna Glass Armonica Duo she has given concerts all over Europe, United States, Canada and Japan.