Phoebe Violet, born 1988 in Costa Rica, is a violinist, singer-songwriter, composer, performer, conceptionalist and painter based in Vienna. Her music merges the rich tradition of her cultural background and her broad artistic upbringing. Although she has had musical and arts training throughout her life, Phoebe Violet is largely self-taught.

Phoebe Violet began taking violin lessons at the age of 3 at the Instituto Nacional de Música de Costa Rica, and started singing shortly after. After moving to Austria in 2002, she continued pursuing music, performing both in youth orchestras, chamber ensembles and as a soloist. She made her debut at the Brucknerhaus Linz with Mozart's A-Major Violin Concerto at age 17 with a cadenza she wrote herself, and was also chosen to play the first performances of Austrian composer Thomas Mandel's rock pieces for solo violin and orchestra.  

She began forming her first music ensembles in her early twenties, experimenting with different song styles and instrumentation, which resulted in her first album The Rhythm of my Soul released in 2014, a selection of songs with a strong pop feel. After some years of study and a much-needed pause to accommodate the new demands of motherhood, she returned to performing with a repertoire of original songs in Spanish, her native tongue, which she arranged for a string ensemble composed of members of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra.  She released the EP Entre Cielo y Tierra Parte II in 2019, and the full Entre Cielo y Tierra album in 2021, on which she returns to her Latin-American roots and explores her relationship with the world and life at large.  

As a composer, Phoebe Violet has a string of side projects that enable her to work with a broader spectrum of the performing arts. These include her work on the play Königstöchter (The King's Daughters") by Klara Rabl for the Lösshof Summer Festival in Lower Austria 2021, for which she composed and performed the musical score including her debut as an actress. In Autumn 2021 she was commissioned to write the score for Revolucionarias, a musical by Liubov R. Otto for the Costa Rican National Theatre Company in cooperation with the Costa Rican Ministry of Culture, highlighting the role of women in the nation's history as part of the bicentennial commemoration of Costa Rican Independence. Amongst her most recent works: Die Tänze der Zauberin, an original composition for the highly acclaimed quartet Kammerfunk; a collaboration as a composer and violinist in Lylit's upcoming new album; Agua a dance performance for quintet, and more. 

When not working on her musical endeavours, Phoebe Violet is an avid painter.

INTERVIEWS

With Walter Pobaschnig: "In der Liebe ist alles erlaubt" Phoebe Violet Künstlerin
With Melissa Danas: Inspiring Performers: Phoebe Violet