The riveting 23-year-old American violinist William Hagen was the third-prize winner of the 2015 Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition (the highest ranking American since 1985). Already a seasoned international performer, William has been hailed as a “brilliant virtuoso…a standout” (The Dallas Morning News) with “an intellectual command of line and score, and just the right amount of power” (violinist.com)
The 2016-17 season includes debuts with the Oregon and Pasadena symphonies, and recitals at Ravinia and the Center for Fine Arts in Belgium. William will also perform chamber music with Steven Isserlis at the Wigmore Hall, with Tabea Zimmermann as part of the Beethoven Week in Bonn, and in Beijing with Yibing Chu.
William’s 2015–16 season included his Tokyo recital debut and recitals in Brussels, Los Angeles, and Florida. He also made his Bulgarian debut with the Sofia Philharmonic, performed with Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, and Steven Isserlis as part of the Chamber Music Connects the World festival at Germany’s Kronberg Academy, and appeared as a soloist with the Jacksonville and Shreveport symphony orchestras, among others. During the summer of 2016, William made his recital debut at the Colmar Festival (France) and returned to the Utah Symphony (Deer Valley Music Festival) and the Aspen Music Festival where he performed both as chamber musician and soloist with the Aspen Philharmonic conducted by Ludovic Morlot.
Since his professional debut at age nine with the Utah Symphony with Keith Lockhart conducting, William has performed with conductors Marin Alsop, Christian Arming, Placido Domingo, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Fabio Mechetti, Ward Stare, Michael Stern, Michel Tabachnik, Arie van Beek, and Hugh Wolff; and with the symphony orchestras of Albany, Buffalo, Fort Worth, Jacksonville, St. Louis, Utah, and with the Aspen Philharmonic at the Aspen Music Festival. Abroad, he has performed with the Brussels Philharmonic, the National Orchestra of Belgium, the ORF Radio-Sinfonieorchester and with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege in a tour of Belgium. He has also performed in Japan with the Yokohama Sinfonietta and the Sendai Philharmonic.
Active and enthusiastic as a chamber musician, William has performed on the Colburn Chamber Music Society series and at the Aspen Music Festival with artists such as Veronika Eberle, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Edgar Meyer, Steven Osborne, Menahem Pressler, Orli Shaham, Robert Spano, and Joaquin Valdepeñas.
A native of Utah, William first heard the violin at the age of 3 and began lessons at 4. At age 10 he entered the studio of Robert Lipsett at the Colburn Community School of Performing Arts, commuting to Los Angeles every week for lessons. After studying with Itzhak Perlman at the Juilliard School for two years, William returned to Los Angeles in 2012 to continue studying with Robert Lipsett at the Colburn Conservatory of Music, and this October will begin studying at the Kronberg Academy as a student of Christian Tetzlaff. He is an alumnus of the Verbier Academy and the Perlman Music Program, and spent many summers at the Aspen Music Festival and School. William plays on an Andrea Guarneri violin (Cremona, c. 1675.)