"Dueñas breathes new life into well-known pieces, infusing them with innovative insight and energy"
.- The New York Times
Spanish violinist María Dueñas has emerged as a singular voice in the firmament of classical music, captivating audiences with her extraordinary palette of tonal colors, impeccable technical command, and performances that fuse artistic maturity with fearless expressivity. The New York Times has praised her ability to breathe “new life into familiar works,” describing her as a “22-year-old violinist with something to say—and the ability to say it brilliantly.”
Her meteoric rise led to an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, with the release of her debut album Beethoven and Beyond in 2023. Her interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, featuring cadenzas of her own composition, performed with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck, earned her the prestigious Opus Klassik Award for Young Artist of the Year in 2024. This was complemented by an extraordinary series of international prizes, including first-place awards at the Yehudi Menuhin Competition, the Zhuhai International Mozart Competition, and the Vladimir Spivakov Competition, among others. Her distinctive interpretive voice has also been recognized by the BBC, which named her a New Generation Artist, as well as with the Princess of Girona Award for Arts and Letters and the Gold Medal for Merit from the City of Granada.
February 2025 marked the release of her second album with Deutsche Grammophon, an ambitious project centered on Paganini’s legendary 24 Caprices alongside works inspired by Paganini from composers spanning Berlioz to contemporary artists. The recording was met with critical acclaim, earning the Instrumental Award at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards and the title of Young Artist of the Year, with critics praising her interpretations as “luminously radiant and golden-toned.”
Dueñas has collaborated with some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin and Dresden, Oslo Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Munich Philharmonic, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony, Vienna Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Danish National Symphony, Dresdner Philharmonie, and the Orchestre de Paris, under the baton of esteemed conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Herbert Blomstedt, Christian Thielemann, Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, Manfred Honeck, Paavo Järvi, Andris Nelsons, Kent Nagano, Marek Janowski, Daniel Harding, Alain Altinoglu, Alan Gilbert, Cristian Măcelaru, Vasily Petrenko, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Vladimir Spivakov, Charles Dutoit, Michael Sanderling, Aziz Shokhakimov, Gustavo Gimeno, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and many others.
Her longstanding collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel has produced notable milestones, including the world premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s violin concerto Altar de Cuerda, performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, on tour in Barcelona, Paris, and London, and at sold-out engagements in Carnegie Hall and Boston. The recording of this work is featured on the album Revolución diamantina, which won three GRAMMY Awards in 2025.
A versatile artist with a profound passion for composition, Dueñas’s creations include Homage 1770, a solo violin work inspired by her debut album and Beethoven’s legacy; Farewell, a solo piano piece; and cadenzas for much of the violin concerto repertoire. In August 2024, she premiered Julian Lawrence Gargiulo’s Sonata No. 4 “From the Window” for Deutsche Grammophon, further demonstrating her commitment to contemporary music. In chamber music, she has forged significant collaborations with luminaries such as baritone Matthias Goerne, pianist Itamar Golan, and violinist Renaud Capuçon.
Her remarkable synthesis of classical tradition and contemporary innovation led her to reincarnate the violinist Kathleen Parlow in Sofia Bohdanowicz’s film Measures for a Funeral, rediscovering Johan Halvorsen’s long-lost Violin Concerto, Op. 28, performing it with the Orchestre Métropolitain under Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Highlights of the 2025–26 season include her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic under Karina Canellakis, the Nobel Prize Concert with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Semyon Bychkov, and her debut with the New York Philharmonic under Manfred Honeck.
A further career milestone will be her participation in the 90th birthday celebrations of Maestro Zubin Mehta with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, performing in Madrid and Barcelona in 2026.
María Dueñas performs on a 1779 Giambattista Guadagnini violin, on loan from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, as well as the 1719 Stradivarius “Michelangelo”, generously loaned by the Karolina Blaberg Foundation.