Bilal Alnemr, violin & Jonathan Ware, piano
's Concert

During the 2025–26 season, Bilal Alnemr will perform as a soloist in Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 at the Große Saal of the Berlin Philharmonie and will perform chamber music at the Bordeaux Opera with Elena Bashkirova & friends. Previously, Bilal made his debut with the ORF Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien under the baton of Thomas Zehetmair, in a performance recorded for the CD Next Generation Mozart Soloists, supported by the Orpheum Foundation. He has also been invited to the Krzyżowa Music Festival in Poland, a TED Talk in Berlin, and the European Conference on Human Rights in Norway.

Bilal’s professional career began at the age of sixteen and includes collaborations with renowned artists such as Renaud Capuçon, Hélène Grimaud, Barbara Hendricks, and Daniel Barenboim. A versatile musician, Bilal performs regularly with the Boulez Ensemble in Berlin and the Ensemble intercontemporain in Paris. Since 2018, he has been a member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, with which he has been touring internationally for seven years.

Beyond the concert stage, the Franco-Syrian violinist Bilal Alnemr is deeply committed to fostering cultural dialogue through music. In 2022, he founded the Vauvenargues Festival, an international summer event bringing together musicians from the Middle East and Europe, which will celebrate its fourth edition in 2026. He also launched Les Cordes de Shams – Music and Intercultural Dialogue, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting artistic exchanges between Syria, France, and beyond.

Born in Damascus in July 1996, Bilal Alnemr discovered his passion for the violin thanks to a toy instrument given to him by his father. As a self-taught musician, relying solely on a DVD for guidance, his talent quickly became apparent. At the age of 11, Bilal won the Syrian National Violin Competition, followed by the prestigious Solhi Al-Wadi Competition. His growing fame led him to perform in India, Russia, Qatar, Jordan, and Lebanon.

After participating in the ECUME Mediterranean cultural exchange program, Bilal enrolled at the Conservatoire d’Aix-en-Provence at the age of twelve, without his family. He graduated from the Paris National Conservatory of Music and Dance (CNSMDP) in 2017, where he studied with Roland Daugareil and Olivier Charlier. To further refine his art, he then enrolled at the Barenboim-Saïd Academy in Berlin, where he studied with Daniel Barenboim, Michaela Martin, and Michael Barenboim.

Source: www.bilalalnemr.com

In high demand as a vocal accompanist and chamber musician, Jonathan gave concerts throughout Europe in the 2019–2020 season at venues such as the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Berlin Staatsoper, the Opéra de Bordeaux, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall, and the Pierre Boulez Saal, in collaboration with Elsa Dreisig and Robin Tritschler.

In 2020, he made his debut at La Scala with Bejun Mehta and returned to the Heidelberger Frühling Festival with Bejun Mehta and Ludwig Mittelhammer. In the United States, Jonathan also gave recitals at Carnegie Hall with Golda Schultz, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with Brenda Rae, and at the Mondavi Center at the University of California with Luca Pisaroni.

Over the past year, Jonathan has recorded with Elsa Dreisig for Warner Classics, Ludwig Mittelhammer for Berlin Classics and Bayerischer Rundfunk, as well as with Renata Pokupić and Krešimir Stražanac for the Croatian label Radio Television. He has given recitals at the Pierre Boulez Saal, Snape Maltings, the Elbphilharmonie, L’Auditori, and the Garmisch Strauss Festival. He has also collaborated with the Vogler Quartett and trombonist Peter Moore on major European stages, as well as with oboist Olivier Stankiewicz in the United States, notably at the Morgan Library in New York, where these concerts were critically acclaimed.

Born in Texas, Jonathan now lives in Berlin, where he teaches at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music and the Barenboim-Said Academy. He studied at The Juilliard School, the Eastman School of Music, and the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music. His awards include first prize, shared with Ludwig Mittelhammer, at the Hugo Wolf International Competition, as well as the Pianist Prize at the Das Lied and Wigmore Hall / Kohn Foundation competitions. In 2014, he was selected to be represented by the Young Classical Artists Trust.

During the 2012–2013 season, Jonathan served as co-artistic director of Schubert and Company, a year-long festival dedicated to the complete performance of Schubert’s Lieder in New York. He has been a member of the faculty at the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago and at the Internationale Meistersinger Akademie in Neumarkt, Germany. He returns regularly to the Verbier Festival Academy as a staff member, as well as to the Samling Institute to lead masterclasses.

Jonathan has performed throughout Europe, including at the Munich Philharmonie, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Rheingau Festival, and the Salzburg Festival Dialogues at the Mozarteum. His musical partners include Mojca Erdmann, Michael Collins, Golda Schultz, Dame Ann Murray, Dame Felicity Lott, Ailish Tynan, Christiane Oelze, and the Vogler Quartett, among others.