Ada Pesch

Ada Pesch is the principal concertmaster of the Zurich Opera Orchestra. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio and started taking violin lessons at the age of six. Amongst other things she studied under the guidance of Josef Gingold at the University of Indiana and performed in master classes of Arthur Grumiaux and György Sebök.

At the age of only 22 Ada Pesch moved to Germany and became the principal concert master of the Hof Symphony Orchestra; since she became principal concert master of the orchestra of the Zurich Opera House in 1990 she has been working with famous directors such as Ricardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnanyi, John Elliot Gardiner and Franz Welser-Möst.

Together with other members of the orchestra of the Zurich Opera House Ada Pesch founded the ensemble “La Scintilla”, an orchestra with excellent musicians who are specialized exclusively in historical music instruments and together with music pioneers such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, William Christie and Marc Minkowski they have been performing historical works.

Ada Pesch has also performed as guest concert master in Paris with “Les Arts Florissant” under the guidance of William Christie and with “Les Musiciens du Louvre” under the guidance of Marc Minkowski for concerts, live radio broadcasts and CD recordings.

Recently, the orchestra “La Scintilla”, directed by Ada Pesch, accompanied Cecilia Bartoli on her tour through North America and Europa with great success. The new CD of Cecilia Bartoli was also recorded with “La Scintilla” under the musical direction of Ada Pesch. In 2004 Ada Pesch founded the Baroque Music Festival in Ernen, Wallis, and has been its musical director until today.