Daniel Meller, violin
Daniel Meller was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds Switzerland in 1986. He began to study violin at the age of nine with Lucyna Mroczkowska, then with Carole Haering at the Conservatory of Music Neuchâtel. In 2003, while still preparing for the Matura gymnasium diploma, he was accepted as a young student at the ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts) in the class of Nora Chastain. In June 2010 he received his concert diploma with distinction, 2011/12 weitere künstlerische Impulse als Erasmus-Student bei David Takeno in London.
He has benefited by attending master classes with Ana Chumachenco, Benjamin Schmid, Isabelle van Keulen, Viktor Pikaizen, Bernhard Greehouse, David Halen and Sylvia Rosenberg.
Daniel Meller won several prizes at the Swiss Youth Music Competition. In 2002 he won 3rd prize at the Charles Hennen Competition in Holland and in 2003 he was awarded first prize and a scholarship from the Maurice Rubeli Foundation, Neuchâtel. This was followed in 2006 by first prize at the Duttweiler-Hug Competition for violin, and in 2007 by a scholarship to attend and perform in the Aspen Music Festival and School coordinated by David Zinman. In 2008 he received both the Kiwanis Promotion Prize for Chamber Music and the Friedl Wald Study Prize. Daniel Meller has been invited to perform at several festivals, including Musikwoche Braunwald, Herbst in der Helferei, Ceresio Estate and Les Schubertiades d’Espace 2. In 2008 he was invited to the Davos Festival for Young Artists, where he played as soloist Helena Tulve’s Violin Concerto with the Camerata Switzerland, conducted by Jean Deroyer.
In addition to Trio Rafale, other chamber music projects and solo performances,Daniel Meller has been invited to perform with many orchestras. From 2008 until February 2010 he has an ad interim position as second concertmaster in the St.Gallen Symphony Orchestra; he currently enjoys the same position with the Bern Symphony Orchestra. He is also a regular guest leader or concertmaster with the Camerata Bern, the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain Neuchâtel, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and the Basel Symphony Orchestra.