María Dueñas Fernández (born 4 December 2002), is a Spanish violinist and composer. In 2021 she won the first prize in the Yehudi Menuhin Competition, in the Senior Division. She is considered the Spanish violinist with the greatest international profile. In 2022, she signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon.
Early life and education María Dueñas Fernández was born in 2002 in Granada, Spain, in a family in which there are no professional musicians, but who encouraged her musical training, as she attended concerts from an early age.
She started playing violin at age seven and enrolled at the Ángel Barrios Conservatory in her native Granada a year later. At the age of 11, she won a scholarship from the Juventudes Musicales de Madrid, allowing her to study at the Carl Maria von Weber College of Music in Dresden. On the recommendation of violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov, she then moved to Vienna to study with Boris Kuschnir, and enrolled at the University of Music and Dramatic Art in Vienna and at the University of Graz.
María has two sisters who are also musicians. Her sister Julia Dueñas plays violin and her sister Daniela Dueñas plays cello.
Musical career Dueñas has been a soloist with European and American orchestras, such as the San Francisco Symphony, the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Spanish National Orchestra. In September 2019, Dueñas was designated as the New Artist of the Month by the magazine Musical America, which is the oldest American magazine on classical music. Dueñas is also the founder of the Hamamelis Quartet.
She won the 1st prize at the 2021 Getting to Carnegie Hall competition, for which each participant performed the world premiere of one movement of Julian Gargiulo’s new sonata for violin and piano. In 2021, at the age of 18, Dueñas won the 1st prize and the Audience Prize in the Senior Division at the Menuhin Competition. For the final round of the competition, Dueñas played Lutosławski's Subito, Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Major, and Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole in D minor. The award includes $20,000 and a 2-year loan of a golden period Stradivarius violin. In 2023 she won the Luitpold Prize of the festival Kissinger Sommer.
Other competitions she has competed in include the 1st Leonid Kogan International Competition for Young Violinists (1st Prize, 3rd Category) and the 2nd Zhuhai International Mozart Competition for Young Musicians (1st Prize, Violin Group B) in 2017, the 4th Yankelevitch International Violin Competition (1st Prize, Senior Division) and the 2nd Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition (1st Prize) in 2018, the Montreal International Musical Competition Violin Edition in 2019, and the 2nd Viktor Tretyakov International Violin Competition (Grand Prize) in 2021.
Instruments
As a stipendiary of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, María Dueñas plays a Nicolò Gagliano violin (17?4 uncertain date) and the Stradivarius "Camposelice" (1710), on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation since 2022. From 2019 to 2022, María played the Guarneri del Gesù "Muntz" (1736), also on loan from the same foundation.
Influences Dueñas grew up around classical music influenced by recordings of violinists such as Yehudi Menuhin, David Oistrakh, and Jascha Heifetz. Her fascination with their distinctive sounds inspires her to work on her own. In an interview with Katherine Cooper from Presto Music in Dueñas' home in Vienna, she states about her influences:
Composing career Dueñas first developed an interest in composing when she composed her own cadenza for Mozart Concerto No. 1. She also proceeded to write cadenzas for Mozart's other concertos as well.
Dueñas plays the piano on occasion and through this developed an interest in experimenting with different harmonies. This eventually resulted in her composing the piece “Farewell” when she was 13, which was awarded the Robert Schumann International Piano Competition award in 2016. In 2020 with production by Alexander Houben and performance from pianist Evgeny Sinaiski, her piece later premiered as a music video.
She has made arrangements of string trios that she plays with her sisters, stating in an interview with Laurie Niles, founder and editor of violinist.com:
Discography
Albums TitleArtistsComposersRelease DateLabelBeethoven and Beyond*María Dueñas, Volker Kempf, Manfred Honeck, Wiener SymphonikerLouis Spohr, Ludwig van Beethoven, Eugène Ysaÿe, Camille Saint-Saëns, Henryk Wieniawski, Fritz Kreisler5 May 2023Deutsche GrammophonPaganini: 24 Caprices - Caprices by Berlioz, Cervelló, Kreisler, Ortiz, Saint-Saëns, Sarasate, WieniawskiMaría Dueñas, Itamar Golan, , Boris Kuschnir, Alexander Malofeev, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester BerlinNiccolò Paganini, Pablo de Sarasate, Fritz Kreisler, Jordi Cervelló, Henryk Wieniawski, Gabriela Ortiz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Hector Berlioz14 February 2025Deutsche GrammophonHomage to HeifetzMaría Dueñas, Gustavo Dudamel, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of VenezuelaÉdouard Lalo, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Claude Debussy, Manuel Ponce28 August 2026Deutsche Grammophon * Versions of Beethoven's Violin Concerto from Beethoven and Beyond were released as an additional 5 albums from May through July 2023 with each of them having First Movement Cadenzas written by Louis Spohr (12 May 2023), Eugène Ysaÿe (2 June 2023), Camille Saint-Saëns (16 June 2023), Henryk Wieniawski (30 June 2023), and Fritz Kreisler (14 July 2023). The Second and Third Movement Cadenzas are written by María in these 5 albums.
Singles and EPs TitleArtist(s)Release DateLabelFauré: 3 Songs, Op. 7: I. Après un rêve (Version for Violin and Piano)María Dueñas, Itamar Golan, Gabriel Fauré30 September 2022Deutsche GrammophonLalo: 2 Impromptus, Op. 4: I. EspéranceMaría Dueñas, Itamar Golan, Édouard Lalo27 January 2023Deutsche GrammophonYsaÿe: Berceuse, Op. 20María Dueñas, Manfred Honeck, Wiener Symphoniker, Eugène Ysaÿe24 March 2023Deutsche GrammophonBeethoven: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61: II. Larghetto (Cadenza: Dueñas)María Dueñas, Manfred Honeck, Wiener Symphoniker, Ludwig van Beethoven7 April 2023Deutsche GrammophonSpohr: Symphonie Concertante for Violin, Harp and Orchestra in G Major, WoO 13: II. AdagioMaría Dueñas, Volker Kempf, Manfred Honeck, Wiener Symphoniker, Louis Spohr21 April 2023Deutsche GrammophonPiazzolla: María De Buenos Aires: Yo soy MaríaMaría Dueñas, Itamar Golan, Astor Piazzolla21 July 2023Deutsche GrammophonDueñas: Homage 1770María Dueñas11 August 2023Deutsche GrammophonVivaldi: The Four Seasons / Violin Concerto in G Minor, RV 315 "Summer": III. Presto (Musical Moments)María Dueñas, "Blue Orchestra" Special String Orchestra, Antonio Vivaldi15 September 2023Deutsche GrammophonGargiulo: EstroMaría Dueñas, Julian Lawrence Gargiulo12 January 2024Deutsche GrammophonTraditional: El cant dels ocells (Arr. Dueñas for Violin and Piano)María Dueñas, Itamar Golan, Traditional26 January 2024Deutsche GrammophonOrtiz: Altar de CuerdaMaría Dueñas, Gustavo Dudamel, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gabriela Ortiz10 May 2024Los Angeles PhilharmonicGargiulo: Sonata No. 4 for Violin and Piano "From the Window"María Dueñas, Julian Lawrence Gargiulo26 July 2024Deutsche GrammophonKreisler: Liebesleid, Old Viennese Dance No. 2 (Arr. Fougeray for Violin and Guitar)María Dueñas, Raphaël Feuillâtre, Fritz Kreisler16 August 2024Deutsche GrammophonKreisler: Caprice viennois, Op. 2 (Arr. Fougeray for Violin and Guitar)María Dueñas, Raphaël Feuillâtre, Fritz Kreisler11 October 2024Deutsche GrammophonPaganini: 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1, MS 25: No. 24 in A Minor. Tema con variazioni. Quasi prestoMaría Dueñas, Niccolò Paganini8 November 2024Deutsche GrammophonPaganini: 24 Caprices for Solo Violin, Op. 1, MS 25: No. 9 in E Major "La chasse". AllegrettoMaría Dueñas, Niccolò Paganini17 January 2025Deutsche Grammophon
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