Noah Bendix-Balgley
Noah Bendix-Balgley enjoys a wide-ranging musical life as a violinist. He is First Concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker and tours both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. His clear and heartfelt personal sound has reached and moved listeners around the world.
Born in Asheville, North Carolina, Noah began playing the violin at age 4. At age 9, he played for Lord Yehudi Menuhin. He graduated from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music and the Munich Hochschule. His principal mentors were Mauricio Fuks, Christoph Poppen and Ana Chumachenco. A laureate of the 2009 Queen Elisabeth Competition, he also won top prizes at the Long-Thibaud Competition in France and the Postacchini Competition in Italy.
Noah appears frequently as soloist with leading international orchestras, as well as in recital at the world’s finest concert halls. Recent highlights include his concerto debut at Carnegie Hall as the featured soloist on the Berliner Philharmoniker USA tour under the direction of Kirill Petrenko, a Japanese tour with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, and concerto appearances with the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin, Dresden, Auckland, and Nagoya. He has also performed with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and the Shanghai, Utah, Quebec, Royal Danish, and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. He has collaborated with conductors including Kirill Petrenko, Manfred Honeck, Marek Janowski, Gustavo Gimeno, Leonard Slatkin, Long Yu, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Marie Jacquot, Fabien Gabel, and JoAnn Falletta. He has toured with Apollo’s Fire Orchestra performing on period instruments, and with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.
Noah recently curated and presented a week-long celebration of the violin as part of his Artist Residency with his hometown Asheville Symphony, including a solo violin recital and an all-concerto program. Upcoming 24/25 highlights include debuts with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orquestra de Valencia, and the Orchestre National de Lyon. Noah’s album Mozart/Sinigaglia with Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic was released in June 2024 to critical acclaim.
Noah was appointed concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2011 at the age of 26. In his four seasons as concertmaster there, he performed often as a soloist with the orchestra, and his performances of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben received acclaim on tour in Europe. His Pittsburgh debut recital in 2012 was named “Best Classical Concert of the Year” by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In 2014, Noah won the audition for 1st Concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker. He describes his position in Berlin: “The concertmaster is a leader among equals in the orchestra, and must serve to facilitate communication between the conductor and the orchestra, and between different sections of the orchestra. The concertmaster must keep his ears and eyes finely attuned to many things at once and provide clarity and leadership that brings the ensemble closer together.”
Noah made his solo debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2018, playing and directing Mozart’s 5th Violin Concerto, and has appeared frequently as soloist since then. In addition to chamber music projects with his colleagues, Noah teaches at the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker, mentoring the next generation of orchestral musicians.
Noah is a renowned performer of traditional klezmer music, a musical style which has been part of his life since an early age. He has performed with world-renowned klezmer groups such as Brave Old World and has taught at klezmer workshops throughout Europe and the United States.
He has composed music since an early age, and in 2016, he composed and premiered his own klezmer violin concerto, Fidl-Fantazye, with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Manfred Honeck. He has since played the piece with the Baltimore Symphony, China Philharmonic, Buffalo Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Guangzhou Symphony and at the Brevard Festival. In 2021 he performed the world premiere of the chamber version of his Klezmer concerto with the Kammerakademie Potsdam. In April 2023, Noah presented a Late Night Klezmer concert with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Philharmonie, performing his klezmer concerto.
A passionate chamber musician, Noah performs in several ensembles: in a trio with pianist Robert Levin and cellist Peter Wiley, with the Rosamunde String Quartet that includes members of the Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic, and with the multi-genre septet Philharmonix, which features members of both the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras. Philharmonix tours worldwide, has an ongoing multi-year residency at Vienna’s Konzerthaus, and in 2022 released their 3rd album on Deutsche Grammophon. Noah’s other recent chamber highlights include performances at the Seattle Music Festival, Bergen International Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, ChamberFest Cleveland, Summerfest La Jolla, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Zermatt Music Festival, and the Le Pont Festival in Japan.