About
Richard Cibula, born in Bratislava, Slovakia, in 2005, is a fifth-generation violinist who impresses with his extraordinary musical expression and high technical maturity. He discovered his passion for the violin at the age of three, when his father laid the foundations for his musical education. At the age of just seven, he was accepted into the Bratislava Conservatory, where he studied with Prof. Frantisek Torok.
His further artistic development took him to the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, where he was trained by the renowned Polish violinist Anna Gutowska from 2016 to 2020. Since 2020, he has been continuing his studies at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität der Stadt Wien, where he is under the guidance of internationally renowned violinists Dalibor Karvay and Nikita Boriso-Glebsky.
His musical education has been profoundly influenced by numerous masterclasses with eminent artists such as Vadim Repin, Midori Goto, Louise Chisson, Sándor Javorkai, Georg Hamann, Pavel Šporcl, Eugeniy Chevkenov, and Ondrej and Roman Janoška.
His extraordinary talent is reflected in numerous international competition successes. He has won more than a dozen prestigious prizes, including the VII International Ferenc Liszt Competition and the VII International Music Festival in Vienna (both in 2024). Other highlights of his competition career include the Grand Prix at the International Music Festival and Competition in Memory of Ludwig van Beethoven in Prague (2023), first prize at the III. Concorso Internazionale Città di Villafranca in Italy (2022), at the Danubia Talents International Music Competition in Budapest (2022), and at the International Music Competition Triomphe de l’Art in Brussels (2024).
A significant milestone in his concert career was his performance in 2018 with the world-famous violinist Midori Goto, when he performed Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins in the Grand Concert Studio of Slovak Radio. In the 2024/2025 season, he gave several concerts in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein—both as a soloist and as a chamber musician—as well as at the Budapest Music Center, the Musée des Instruments de Musique in Brussels, and the Amadeus Festival 2025, where he performed with the Janoska Ensemble, Audrey Park, Siyi Li, and Isabella Egawa. Further performances took him to renowned venues such as the Slovak Philharmonic, the Grand Concert Studio of Slovak Radio, and the Grand Hall of the Royal Conservatory in Brussels with the Chamber Orchestra of the Arthur Grumiaux Foundation. His concert activities have taken him to numerous European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Croatia.
In addition to his solo career, Richard Cibula is a dedicated chamber musician. In 2023, he was invited to perform with members of the Vienna Philharmonic, including Maxim Brilinsky, Sebastian Breit, Stefan Gartmayer, and Filip Waldmann.
Since 2025, he has also been acting as substitute first violinist with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he is co-founder of the Cibula Chamber Orchestra and the ensemble The Echoes, which brings together young musicians from Central Europe.
Richard Cibula currently plays a violin by Maria Julia Pasch, kindly provided by a private sponsor, and a Matteo Goffriller violin (1703), generously loaned to him by the Goh Family Foundation.