Hartmut Rohde began studying the violin and viola at the age of nine. He was a student in Vienna and Hannover, under the guidance of Hatto Beyerle. He is professor of viola at Berlin’s University of Arts and guest professor at the Royal Academy in London. He is a founding member of the Kandinsky String Trio and the Mozart Piano Quartet, which tour extensively. Hartmut Rohde has recorded for Decca, Arte Nova and Dabringhaus und Grimm and Naxos. As a member of the Leipzig String Quartet he was the recipient in 2003 of the Echo Classic Prize for their recording of Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen and Capriccio. He won first prize at the German Music Competition, at the Salzburg International Academy Mozarteum and for the Best Interpretation of Contemporary Music at the Naumburg Competition in New York. Hartmut Rohde plays a viola by Michael Ledfuß (2002).