Beatrix
Löw-Beer
Modern Violinist Plays with Passion |
While on her way from Munich, Germany to play a gig in Frankfurt,
uber-talented saxophonist
Beatrix Löw-Beer,
whose performances have taken her to England, the United States, the
Netherlands, Spain, Ibiza, Mallorca, Italy, Luxemburg, France, Austria,
Switzerland, numerous other European countries, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon,
Dubai and some parts of Asia, took time to talk to Riveting Riffs
Magazine about her career and her life. The very congenial Beatrix
Löw-Beer, while setting a high standard for herself, is as nice a
musician as you will meet. She has been compared to her contemporaries,
celebrity violinists such as Vanessa-Mae from England via Singapore and
American violinist Lindsey Stirling. Beatrix Löw-Beer has performed with
such stars as Rod Stewart, Dutch singer Caro Emerald, award winning Pop
singer Sarah Connor, the first German performer to ever have four
consecutive #1 hits on the German charts. Beatrix Löw-Beer’s music
ranges from Classical to Rock to House, Pop, Jazz and everything in
between.
Artists such as
Beatrix Löw-Beer
are the reason why people are discovering the saxophone for the first
time. When you watch her concert performances or videos to promotional
videos everything from her movement to her attitude and her costumes
exhibits an exuberance for performing music. One is never left with the
impression that you are watching someone playing an instrument, because
her saxophone becomes an extension of her persona.
Take
us back to where this all began.
“I grew up in Augsburg, which is one hour from Munich, which is the
capital of Bavaria. It is in the south of Germany, very close to
Austria. Augsburg is the third largest city in Bavaria and I think it
has 300,000 residents. There are two rivers in my city, the Lech and
Wertach, (which flow into the Singold River) and there are also small
lakes.
I have one sister and one brother, and I am the youngest child. Our
family came from the Czech Republic and most of them left for other
continents. My mother was an Opera singer and everyone was into music
and played an instrument,” she says.
We had read that
Beatrix Löw-Beer
began to play the violin when she was three years of age and we tried to
get our heads wrapped around the image of a little child playing an
instrument of that size.
Laughing good naturedly, she says, “No they were very small violins, it
was 1 / 16th of the dimension of the large one.
My sister is a violinist and she is one year older. The only thing I
really remember is since she wanted to start (playing) and I also wanted
to start. It was a competition. I just always wanted to be better.”
“In Germany I attended a music high school and it is only for people who
play their instruments well. You can do your (academic) degrees there,
but you can also start early on your Bachelor’s music degree. The focus
is on music, but I also had other major subjects. I had a professor from
the music conservatory. It was really cool, because I could practice all
day and meet many other musicians that were my own age. I would go to
master classes for violin and chamber music and there were orchestra
tours.
I was in youth choirs and also the concertmaster (editor’s note: the
first violinist who in collaboration with the conductor leads the
orchestra).
I was admitted to the conservatory (Nümberg-Augsburg) when I was sixteen
and I felt really honored. I was a little bit worried, because I heard
the conservatory was not accepting anybody new. My professor, Lydia Dubrovskaya was from Moscow and she is one of the most famous violinists
ever. I learned a lot from her. The bow technique that she taught me is
perfect, because it is so relaxed. Many violinists have a lot of tension
in their entire bodies, because they are not relaxed. The Russian
technique is easygoing, relaxed and without any pressure. You really
need to be relaxed or else you cannot do moves or anything else,”
explains Beatrix Löw-Beer.
She adds that the more relaxed playing technique also helps prevent
injuries, “Before I went to the music conservatory, I had problems with
my left hand, carpal tunnel syndrome. If I had the technique (I now use)
and learned at the conservatory I would not have had this problem.”
As for when she decided that she wanted to pursue a career in music, she
says, “I decided this when I was really small. When everybody asked me
what I wanted to be, I said I wanted to be a violinist. I never had
another plan or a plan B. That was always my plan. I really love it and
I have never found anything that was is so much fun.”
Beatrix Löw-Beer
“There was a partnership between Munich and Cincinnati, Ohio through the
conservatory of music. Every year they give one student a scholarship to
study there, so I applied. This was one of the best years ever, for sure
(light laughter). It was easygoing and I wasn’t only playing
Classical music. For the first time in my life I listened to music other
than Classical music. Before that I only listened to Classical music and
that was all that I practiced. It (going to Cincinnati) changed
everything and I became more open minded. I was twenty-three at the
time. Since there were not any Germans, I had to speak English all of the time,” she recalls, while laughing and we might add she is completely fluent in English now, with almost no trace of an accent.
Beatrix Löw-Beer talks about the adjustments she needed to make while in
America, “It was starting to improvise and to play without sheets and in
playing my own music. The professor was really cool. He said you don’t
need sheets, just play what is in your mind. As a Classically trained
musician you don’t do this. When you play Tchaikovsky you read the
sheets, you remember them, but you still play Tchaikovsky. You don’t do
your own thing. That was really, really cool. The year was amazing,
because most of it we were traveling around the U.S. and Canada. There
were people from all around the world who were studying there.”
As we mentioned in the beginning,
Beatrix Löw-Beer
musical repertoire is vast, “I think it is so cool that I have a chance
to play everything on my instrument. It is so flexible and you can have
different techniques and can give every style of music something
special. It is a chance to show people that violinists don’t need to be
boring and they don’t need to play only Classical music. You can show
them combinations and make it a little more exciting. Sometimes they
really love it and they say oh I thought violinists were always boring
and just Classical. They say it sounds so nice when you play a Rock
ballad. Many people get access who never would have listened to violin
music. Young violinists will hear that and say it is cool and I want to
keep on doing this. In every
type of music now they use strings.”
Beatrix you have performed all over the world and with some of the
biggest stars and you are now considered to be an elite musician, do you
feel like you have arrived?
“I don’t know if you ever say you arrived. My career was never planned
to be like this. I wanted to be in an orchestra and touring. It was kind
of an accident actually. In Munich they have a photo competition and you
send one of your pictures and then you can go on to other rounds if you
win. I just did it for fun and I sent a holiday picture in. It was
through this that I met some photographers and they took me to a party.
At the party the owner of the venue asked me what I did and she said
bring your violin here next week and play with the DJ. Then there were
many photographs posted of me doing it and I got jobs, jobs, jobs. It
was crazy and not planned. After a few months I started to play,” she
recalls.
To date
Beatrix Löw-Beer
has recorded one solo album, which you can still purchase. It was
released through Universal Publishing in Germany. The album is also
available through various streaming services. She did tease us a bit
with this tidbit though, saying that she plans on recording another
album soon. Perhaps you
Please take time to visit the website for Beatrix Löw-Beer
here, where you can watch her music videos, see concert
photos and as more music venues start to open up around the world, you
can keep track of her concert dates. You can also follow Beatrix
Löw-Beer on her official
Instagram page.
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