SEBASTIAN SCHMIDT accepted a professorship at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg/Germany in 2013, currently serving as Head of Strings.

For more than 30 years Sebastian Schmidt has focused on chamber music. Being the first violinist of the Mandelring String Quartet he has won the international competitions in Munich (ARD), Evian (France) and the Premio Paolo Borciani in Italy.

Since then Sebastian Schmidt performs all over the world. In addition to appearances in Europe he regularly concertizes in North and South America (New York, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Lima), Japan (Osaka, Tokyo) the Middle East and Asia. He also participates in big festivals like the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival or the Salzburg Festival. Many CD recordings (i.e. cycles of Brahms, Schubert and Shostakovich) have won critical acclaim.

Sebastian Schmidt studied with Ulf Hoelscher as one of his first students at the Musikhochschule in Karlsruhe/Germany after having been a student of Max Speermann in Wuerzburg. A scholarship from the DAAD allowed him to spend some time at the Indiana University in Bloomington (USA) with Nelli Shkolnikova and Josef Gingold. Master classes with Yfrah Neaman (London) and Vladimir Landsman (Montréal) among others as well as various chamber music courses rounded his musical education.