Walter Weller

• Conductor
• Violinist

About

The Austrian conductor and violinist, Walter Weller, began taking violin lessons at the age of six. His father was a violinist in the Wiener Philharmoniker. Young Weller first gained renown as a prodigy on the violin. At the Vienna Academy of Music, he studied with Professors Ernst Morawec and Franz Samohyl. At the age of 17, he became a member of the Wiener Philharmoniker, and by the unusually early age of 22 he had become joint concertmaster with Willi Boskovsky. He remained in this post for 11 years.

While leading the orchestra, Walter Weller also established and led his own string quartet, the Weller Quartet, from 1958 to 1969. The Quartet achieved great fame through numerous concert tours and festival appearances throughout Europe, Asia and North America. The Weller Quartet’s recordings for Decca Records included Haydn’s complete Op. 33, Mozart, Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Alban Berg and Dmitri Shostakovich. Their recordings have been honoured with awards such as the Mozart Interpretationspreis, the Grammy Award (USA), and the Grand Prix du Disque.