Acclaimed as one of the finest concert violinists of today and living nearby in Ligerz, Michaela Paetsch grew up in a musical family on a high mountain in Colorado Springs, making her solo debut at the age of twelve with the Colorado Springs Symphony while studying with her parents, Priscilla and Gunther Paetsch

Acclaimed as one of the finest concert
violinists of today and living nearby in Ligerz, Michaela Paetsch grew up in a
musical family on a high mountain in Colorado Springs, making her solo debut at
the age of twelve with the Colorado Springs Symphony while studying with her
parents, Priscilla and Gunther Paetsch. Later she went to study with Szymon
Goldberg at Yale University and the Curtis Institute of Music.  

“Making music and performing with my family
chamber ensemble was the most important part of my development as a performing
artist.”

This tradition has continued with different Paetsch Family reunion
concerts in America and Europe. Starting in August 2016 the two Swiss Paetsch
Families, the Paetsch Family Ensemble from Ligerz and Melide performed for the
Bourgkonzert Series and then for CAN in La Neuveville in February 2018. These
two successful appearances brought the family ensemble a special Christmas
event in Bellmund at the Kulturzentrum La Prairie on 15. December 2019 which is
sold out since March.

Michaela also performs often with her (Chicago-Paris-Berlin)
cellist nephew, Johannes Gray in the area, (Ligerz, Ins, Biel-Pasquart Church, Chappeli-Grenchen
and Bolligen) in the Schubert Quintet Project with the Transatlantic Quintet.

Photo :

©

Maryam Hammad

With her newer ensemble Pilgerweg Strings in
the Bielersee area Michaela plays chamber music concerts in different formations.
The most recent event was at the Catholic Church in Ins, for a Mothers Day
concert on 12. May 2019 with Haydn’s Quartet No. 1 in G Op. 77 and Beethoven’s
Quartet No. 15 in A-minor Op. 132.

Winning top prizes in the Queen Elisabeth and
the Tchaikovsky International
Competitions brought her to Europe while performing as soloist,
recitalist, and chamber musician in the major musical centers of the world,
including New York’s Carnegie Hall. She has also participated in major
festivals such as Kultur-Bühne Rhein-Sieg, Marlboro, Davos, Banff, Boulder-Bach,
and “Mostly Mozart” in New York. She has performed as soloist with the Berner
Symphonieorchester, TOBS in Biel, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, NHK
Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the Philharmonics of Osaka and Seoul, Liége and Bergen, the National Orchestra
of Belgium, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, the
Residentie Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and the BBC Symphony,
among others.  She has collaborated with
conductors such as Kent Nagano, Kaspar Zehnder, Dmitrij Kitajenko, Horst Stein,
Howard Griffith and Myung-Whun Chung.

Her extensive discography includes the 24
Caprices by Niccolo Paganini – the first recording by a woman violinist. Die Zeit described the disc as a
“sensation in the history of record-making.” Her world premiere CD with the two
Concertos by Joachim Raff and the Bamberger Symphoniker (TUDOR 7086) enjoyed
great critical success, and Michaela has been acclaimed as the reference player
of Raff’s music. The TUDOR CD “Extase” made with her husband, Klaus Neftel and their
ensemble Prima Carezza, won a Grand Prix du Disque in Paris. Prima Carezza
recently played anniversary concerts in Biel and in Ligerz.

Michaela plays a Gaetano Pasta Violin from
Brescia, made in 1704.