Muriel Razavi

The American-Iranian violist Muriel Razavi performs internationally across diverse formations and genres of classical music. Since 2023 she holds professorships in Viola at the Mozarteum University Salzburg and the State University of Music Trossingen, and is founder and artistic director of the Leipzig-based Soundseed Festival, dedicated to contemporary works by female
composers from the MENA region with an emphasis on interdisciplinary practice.

From 2020 to 2022, Razavi served as Deputy Principal Violist of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig. Alongside her orchestral career, she has been deeply engaged in higher music education, teaching for the German National Youth Orchestra and the Saxony Youth Orchestra, and mentoring students at the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre through the mentoring Arts program, with a focus on professional preparation.

Razavi is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre under the artistic supervision of Daniel Barenboim. Her research investigates Re-Orientalism in contemporary music by Iranian female composers affiliated with the Iranian Female Composers Association (IFCA). In 2022, she received the Dbü Prize for an Outstanding Program with Special
Social Relevance for her solo project Ancient Eve is Once Again Offering Apples, presented at Ultraschall Berlin and Heidelberger Frühling.

As a soloist, Razavi has appeared with ensembles including the Bridges Chamber Orchestra, Ankara State Orchestra, and Lviv Philharmonic. She premiered Golfam Khayam’s viola concerto Her Path Through Clay & Silk in 2022 and Khayam’s double concerto for Viola and Santur in 2024. As a chamber musician she plays regularly at renowned festivals worldwide.

A long-standing member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Mutter’s Virtuosi, Razavi performs up to sixty concerts annually. She studied with Tabea Zimmermann, Nils Mönkemeyer, Tatjana Masurenko, and Wilfried Strehle. Razavi plays a modern Viola by Patrick Robin.