Turkish violinist Deniz Sensoy was named one of Classic FM’s Rising Stars of 2024, awarded the 2024/25 London Symphony Orchestra Conservatoire Scholarship, and selected as a Britten Pears Young Artist. She has received the ‘Future’s Women Stars’ Prize from the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, and the title of ‘Glowing Star of the Year’ from İş Bank. She has been awarded first prize at the 13th International Mimar Sinan Young Musicians Competition, second prize at the 16th Bohdan Warchal ‘Talents for Europe’ Competition in Slovakia, and third prizes at both the Ohrid Pearl International Music Competition and the 4th Gülden Turalı National Violin Competition. She has been a finalist at the 4th Paul Hindemith International Music Competition and the 24th Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition.

She began violin studies at the age of six. She studied on a full scholarship at Bilkent University Music and Performing Arts High School before starting her Bachelor’s degree with Professor Krzysztof Wegrzyn at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. In 2022, she was awarded the prestigious Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Scholarship to complete her Bachelor’s degree at the Royal College of Music, London. She now pursues her Master’s studies with Alexander Gilman at RCM, where she is supported by a full ABRSM scholarship.

Throughout her career, Deniz has performed at prestigious venues worldwide. She made her Wigmore Hall debut in 2023, to which she now returns annually. She performed as soloist alongside Maxim Vengerov in celebration of his 40-year stage career at the Royal Albert Hall with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra. As a member of the LGT Young Soloists, she has appeared at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonie Luxembourg, and Melbourne Recital Hall, continuing to tour internationally with the ensemble, performing at prestigious venues around the world. Other festival and concert appearances include the Lerici Music Festival, Cagliari International Music Festival and Südtirol Festival in Italy, Zorlu PSM and Istanbul Atatürk Cultural Center in Turkey, Morges Music Academy in Switzerland, and the Richard Jakoby Concert Hall in Germany. She has collaborated with Classic FM on a video recording for International Women’s Day at Southbank Centre in London.

Deniz made her orchestral solo debut at the age of eight with the Çukurova State Symphony Orchestra and has since performed with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, İzmir State Symphony Orchestra, Olten Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others. She performed as soloist in Bruch’s Violin Concerto No.1 with the YMSO at Cadogan Hall and with the RCM Symphony Orchestra at Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall in a live-streamed performance. For over a decade, she has been a regular artist at the International Bellapais Music Festival in Northern Cyprus, most recently performing with the TRNC Presidential Symphony Orchestra in 2023. She represented Turkey as concertmaster of the ‘Iguazú en Concierto’ International Youth Symphony Orchestra, performing for an audience of over 5,000 at the UNESCO-organised International Music Festival in Iguazú in 2014.

She has worked with distinguished violinists including Maxim Vengerov, Midori Goto, Alina Ibragimova, Dora Schwarzberg, Kolja Blacher, Alexander Markov, Mincho Minchev, Igor Ozim, Andrej Bielow, Daniel Rowland and Esther Yoo, as well as quartets such as the Brodsky Quartet, Quartetto di Cremona, Sacconi Quartet, and Marmen Quartet, through her ensemble, the Fiora Quartet, where she plays first violin.

Deniz currently plays on a Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù violin (Cremona, 1732), generously loaned by a private foundation and the RCM, as well as a Thomas Perry violin (Dublin, 1822), kindly loaned by Florian Leonhard Fine Violins.