INTERVIEW
When and where was your first concert with MCO? 1997 in Landshut.
What’s the best thing about playing with MCO? Playing in an orchestra – which works the same way as a chamber music group – is a privilege. I appreciate the respect everyone shows towards each other and the curiosity to always learn something new. This plus 20 years playing together makes for a very fruitful and inspiring job.
What is your most memorable moment with the orchestra? There are many! But the first long projects playing Don Giovanni with Claudio Abbado and Daniel Harding were particularly special because we created the base from which we have worked ever since.
What is the most difficult aspect of your job? The fact that we are always away from home makes it difficult with a family and children, but it is also the reason why we can work together with such concentration.
What makes the “perfect” concert? When everyone is alert, attentive and focused, connecting with each other and with the music, so that we achieve a level well beyond what we rehearsed.
BIOGRAPHY
Mette Tjaerby Korneliusen was born in Denmark in 1975. She lives in Hamburg with her husband and two children. At the age of four she started to play the violin and became a very active orchestra and chamber music player already as a teenager. She graduated in Copenhagen with Prof. Peder Elbaek and went to London for further studies with Prof. Erich Gruenberg.
With her pianist Mimi Kjaer she performed a big part of the classical sonata repertoire all over Denmark. They also played concerts in Paris, Rome, and Kuala Lumpur.
For ten years she played with the Helios String Quartet and had masterclasses with the Amadeus Quartet.
From 1994-97 she was a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the European Union Youth Orchestra. As a freelance musician, she worked in the Royal Danish Opera, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Athelas Ensemble, the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, the Malmö Opera, the NDR Sinfonieorchester, the Ensemble Resonanz, and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. Since 2011 she plays in the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra and is active in different chamber ensembles, as for instance in the Elbphilharmonie Hall.
She is one of the founding members of the MCO and member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
