Age: 22
“Playing the violin enables me to reach the public and bring them on a musical journey. People often go to concerts to escape their everyday lives, and as a musician, I have the privilege to guide them through different emotions and stories through my music.”
Sara Isabelle Ispas is currently a student of Kolja Blacher at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. She describes music as always being a part of her life: “When I was 4 years old, my parents caught me singing, improvising with jazz from a tape. From then on, I kept singing daily.” In 2013, after taking part in a conservatory choir, she began playing the violin and studied with her father Daniel Ispas until 2020, when she entered a four-year full-ride scholarship program at the International Menuhin Music Academy (IMMA) in Switzerland.
At the IMMA she studied with Oleg Kaskiv, Renaud Capuçon as well as Guillaume Chilemme, and participated in masterclasses from renowned violinists such as Liviu Prunaru, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Baiba Skride, Rainer Honeck, Noah Bendix-Balgley and Ana Chumachenco. Through further musical encounters, she gained artistic guidance from illustrious musicians including Michael Vaiman, Pierre Amoyal, Kirill Troussov, Ioana Cristina Goicea, Petru Munteanu, Alena Baeva, Simone Bernardini, and Luiz Felipe Coelho (violin), as well as Gábor Takács-Nagy, Nils Moenkemeyer, Walter Küssner, Gerard Caussé and Jonathan Aner (chamber music).
Sara contacted violin maker Yair Hod Fainas in 2021 to make her a bespoke violin, which she has been playing ever since. “I am very happy to see how this instrument is opening up and how its sound is starting to mold to my playing and personality.”
Sara has won major prizes at numerous international competitions, including the Hasselburg Chamber Music Prize 2025 (Germany), the Carl Flesch International Violin Competition 2023 (Hungary), the Leonid Kogan International Competition for Young Violinists 2022 (Belgium), the Kloster Schöntal International Competition for Violin 2022 (Germany) and the Concours international de violon Marie Cantagrill 2022 (France).
Sara has performed as a soloist with the Menuhin Academy Camerata, the Savaria Symphony Orchestra as well as the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra, and is an active recitalist and chamber musician across Europe.
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