French violinist Alexandra Soumm is a multi-faceted artist who is equally at home in concerto and chamber repertoire. Orchestras with which she has collaborated in recent years include Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Danish National Symphony, Helinski Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and Tokyo Symphony. As a chamber musician, she has given recitals at the Auditorium du Louvre (Paris), Palais des Beaux Arts (Brussels), and Wigmore Hall (London). She has also appeared at international festivals such as the City of London Festival, Deauville, Montpellier, MDR Musiksommer, Schleswig-Holstein, Verbier, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad and Varna. Born in Moscow, Alexandra started to learn the violin with her father at the age of five and gave her first concert two years later. She later moved to Vienna to study with the renowned pedagogue Boris Kuschnir and won the Eurovision Competition in 2004. Now based in Paris, she, along with two friends, founded non-profit organisation Esperanz’Arts in 2012, which was the culmination of four years’ involvement in charity projects aimed at creating opportunities through the arts. In January 2013, Alexandra was named Godmother of the newly established El Sistema France. The violin Alexandra plays on is made by Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini in Turin c.1785 and is known as the ‘ex-Kavakos’. The loan of the instrument by a benefactor is a part of the London Music Masters Award and has kindly been arranged through Florian Leonhard Fine Violins, London.