Ruth Killius

Violist Ruth Killius is best known for her work with the Zehetmair Quartet and other chamber ensembles, but she has also performed extensively as a soloist. She has a strong commitment to contemporary music and has premiered works by several major composers. Killius was born in Lahr, in the West German state of Baden-Württemberg, on June 20, 1968. Her main teachers were Ulrich Koch and Kim Kashkashian. Killius was the principal violist for the Camerata Bern orchestra in the 1990s, and early in her career, she crossed the radar of the ECM label; in 1995, she appeared on the album Giya Kancheli: Exil, featuring soprano Maacha Deubner. In 2003, Killius joined oboist Heinz Holliger, violinist Thomas Zehetmair, and cellist Thomas Demenga on the album Lauds and Lamentations: Music of Elliott Carter and Isang Yun. After that, Killius often appeared on ECM in recordings of contemporary music, in many cases brand new. Killius has appeared as a soloist with such major orchestras as the Boston Symphony, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and the Residentie Orkest Den Haag in the Netherlands. She is a frequent guest at such major festivals as the Lucerne Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, and the Helsinki Festival. Killius and Zehetmair have also performed as a duo and as a trio with cellist Rosie Biss; she also plays solo viola, and in 2018, she recorded Hindemith's sonatas for solo viola for the NomadMusic label. She and Zehetmair often play contemporary music, but in 2009, they recorded Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola, and orchestra, K. 364, for the Glossa label with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century. In 2011, Killius and Zehetmair issued the album Manto & Madrigals on ECM; the album featured duos by major composers, including Holliger (whose double concerto Janus was written for the pair), Peter Maxell Davies, and Bohuslav Martinu. Killius and Zehetmair returned in 2023 on ECM, backed by the Royal Northern Sinfonia in works by Beethoven, Bartók, and John Casken.
© James Manheim /TiVo