Lauma Skride

Lauma Skride’s playing is ‘wonderfully sensitive, with marvellous tone quality, and always with highly virtuosic vigour’, according to a review by the Bavarian Broadcasting Service. Combined with brilliant technique, these are the qualities with which Lauma Skride captivates audiences on major concert stages throughout the world, both as a soloist and chamber musician.

Lauma Skride, who was awarded the Beethoven Ring in 2008, is highly acclaimed for her interpretations of Germanic classical and romantic repertoire. She appears with orchestras such as BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Ulster Orchestra, Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Hamburger Symphoniker, Dresdner Philharmonie, Essener Philharmoniker, Bremer Philharmoniker, Philharmonisches Orchester Heidelberg, Tapiola Sinfonietta and Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. She collaborates with such conductors as Pedro Halffter, Kristjan Järvi, Cornelius Meister, Andris Nelsons, Anu Tali, Muhai Tang, André de Ridder, Peter Ruzicka, John Storgårds, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Xian Zhang.

Lauma Skride’s 19/20 season begins with her appearances at the Schubertiade and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and performances of the Clara Schumann piano concerto at the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig with Andris Nelsons and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic with Pablo Heras-Casado. Other highlights in the season include performances of the Beethoven Triple concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Daniel Müller-Schott at the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, as well as concerts with the Turku Philharmonic, Kitchener Waterloo Symphony, Prague Philharmonia, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock and Brandenburger Symphoniker.

A highly sought after chamber musician, Lauma Skride founded the ‘Skride Quartet’ together with her sister Baiba, Harriet Krijgh and Lise Berthaud in 2016. Since then, the quartet has performed in major venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall London, Schubertiade Hohenems, Tanglewood Music Festival, etc. The Skride Quartet will embark on their first Australian tour in November 2019, in addition to tours in Europe and the US to venues such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Concertgebouw Brugge, Library of Congress Washington, Schubert Club St. Paul, etc. in 2020. The quartet’s first CD featuring works by Mozart, Mahler and Brahms was released in 2019 under the Orfeo label. Lauma Skride is also committed to the long established duo with her sister. 
Other chamber music partners of Lauma Skride include Anne-Sophie Mutter, Daniel Müller-Schott, Sol Gabetta and Julian Steckel, as well as Jörg Widmann, Christian Tetzlaff and the Armida Quartett. 

Lauma Skride recorded Fanny Hensel's piano cycle Das Jahr for Sony in 2007 and received an ECHO Classic Award as Best Young Artist for this recording. Together with Baiba in 2011 she recorded the transcription of Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian Dances for violin and piano by Joseph Joachim for ORFEO. In 2016 they released a CD with a pure Scandinavian repertoire.

Born in Riga, Latvia, in 1982, Lauma Skride is the youngest of three daughters in a musical family. She began playing the piano at the age of five and was later a pupil of Anita Paze at the Emil Darzin School of Music in Riga. She then studied under Volker Banfield at the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg. Lauma Skride has participated in numerous international competitions since the age of eleven, among them the Maria Canals Competition in Spain and the Cleveland International Piano Competition in the USA, and has won several prizes.