Short Biography

Long Biography

Thomas Demenga is one of Switzerland’s most defining musical figures – as soloist, composer and teacher. In September 2025 he was awarded the Swiss Music Prize by the Federal Jury for Music of the Federal Office of Culture, at the award ceremony on 11 September 2025 at the KKL Lucerne.

His artistic work lives from traversing all stylistic eras and from the exchange between interpretation and creation. He devotes himself with particular intensity to new music and improvisation. His own voice as composer and interpreter of works of the 20th and 21st centuries – including numerous world premieres – forms a complementary dimension to historically informed Baroque practice and to his interpretations of the classical and romantic repertoire.

Born in Bern, Thomas Demenga studied with Walter Grimmer, Antonio Janigro, Leonard Rose and Mstislav Rostropovich, among others. He received important chamber music impulses at the Juilliard School in New York from Claus Adam, Felix Galimir and Robert Mann.

As chamber musician and soloist he performs at major festivals and music centres worldwide, with partners including Heinz Holliger, Gidon Kremer, Thomas Larcher, Aurèle Nicolet, Thomas Zehetmair and Tabea Zimmermann. As a soloist he has appeared with orchestras such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Camerata Bern, Zürcher Kammerorchester and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, under conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Myung-Whun Chung, Heinz Holliger, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Sándor Végh and Mstislav Rostropovich.

An extensive series of recordings for ECM New Series documents this work. In 2002 his recording of the Bach Solo Suites combined with works by Holliger, Carter, Veress, Zimmermann, Yun and Hosokawa was released; a second, complete recording of the six Suites followed in 2017. Lauds and Lamentations (2003), Chonguri (2006) and Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s canto di speranza (2008) were each awarded Stern des Monats by Fono Forum.

As a composer, Thomas Demenga was the first Swiss composer to be awarded first prize at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris in 1991, for solo per due. In 2007/08 he was Composer in Residence of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne; for the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann 2010 in Berlin he wrote the compulsory piece EFEU.

He was Artistic Director of the Davos Festival young artists in concert from 2001 to 2006, and of the Camerata Zürich from 2011 to 2020. At Lucerne Festival he appeared as artiste étoile in 2003.

From 1980 until his retirement he held a concert and soloist class at the Hochschule für Musik Basel – 45 years of teaching at the Musik-Akademie Basel, honoured with a farewell concert in May 2025.

For many years he performed in duo with his brother Patrick Demenga, including appearances with the Berner Kammerorchester under Philippe Bach, at the Société de Musique Neuchâtel, at Theater Chur and with the Kammerphilharmonie Graubünden, as well as a masterclass at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

In 2025 he founded the Trio entre vias with Matthias Schranz (violoncello) and Philipp Moll (double bass). After first concerts in Bolligen, the trio performed at the Demenga Musikfestival Calanca, at Musikfestwoche Meiringen and at the Fraumünster Zürich. In October 2026 col legno releases Common Ground, the trio’s first recording; the album launch takes place on 15 October 2026 at the Yehudi Menuhin Forum Bern. In the same month Thomas Demenga chairs the jury of the Domnick Cello Competition for New Music at the HMDK Stuttgart, whose set piece is his EFEU.