Lauma Skride

Lauma Skride’s playing is “wonderfully sensitive, with wonderful tonal colors, and again and again with highly virtuosic élan,” as the Bayerischer Rundfunk attests to her in a review. Combined with a brilliant technique, these are the qualities with which Lauma Skride succeeds in inspiring audiences on the most important national and international stages, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician.

Lauma Skride, who has been awarded the Beethoven Ring since 2008, is particularly appreciated for her interpretations of the German classical and romantic repertoire. She has appeared as a guest with orchestras such as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orquesta de Gran Canaria. Among the conductors with whom Lauma Skride works are Andris Nelsons, Kristjan Järvi, Anu Tali, Muhai Tang, John Storgards, Pedro Halffter, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Cornelius Meister. In recent years, she has made guest appearances with the Heidelberg Philharmonic, the Essen Philharmonic under Tomas Netopil, the Bremerhaven State Orchestra and the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra, among others

Lauma Skride also appears regularly with her sister, violinist Baiba Skride, on major international stages. Fiery energy, youthful freshness and the highest sensitivity have become trademarks of the duo.

Other chamber music partners of Lauma Skride include Daniel Müller-Schott, Sol Gabetta and Julian Steckel, as well as Jörg Widmann, Christian Tetzlaff and the Armida Quartet.

In 2007, Lauma Skride recorded Fanny Hensel’s piano cycle “Das Jahr” for SONY and was honored for this recording with the Echo-Klassik Award as best young artist.
In 2011 the recording of the Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms in an arrangement for violin and piano by Joseph Joachim with her sister Baiba was released by ORFEO, further recordings are planned.

Born in 1982 in Riga, the youngest of three sisters in a family of Latvian musicians, Lauma Skride began playing the piano at the age of five and soon after became a student of Anita Paze at the Emil Darzin Music Academy in Riga. Finally, she studied in the class of Prof. Volker Banfield at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Since the age of eleven, she has participated in numerous international competitions (including Maria Canals in Spain and Cleveland International Piano Competition USA) and has won several awards.