Julia Fischer is one of the leading violinists of the day, winning the international Yehudi Menuhin Competition in 1995. She receives regular invitations from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C., the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as leading European orchestras, including the Vienna Symphonic, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. She has an especially close relationship with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, which she first led in January 2006 during a tour of Germany.

Pianist Martin Helmchen has performed with orchestras that include the Deutsche Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin, RSO Stuttgart, Bamberg Symphoniker, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the chamber orchestras of Zurich, Amsterdam, Vienna, Lausanne, Cologne, and Munich. He has worked with conductors who include Marek Janowski, Philippe Herreweghe, Marc Albrecht, Vladimir Jurowski, Jiri Kout, Bernhard Klee, and Lawrence Foster.

Both artists record for PentaTone, and the featured release below of the complete works of Franz Schumann for violin and piano, is their first together. Vol. 2 of this series will be released April 2010.