British-French violist Hugo Haag’s career comprises solo, chamber and orchestral performance, teaching, as well as curating concerts and a chamber music festival. 

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In 2025 he released his debut album on the Resonus Classics label. The album’s poignant programme encircles Brahms’s Piano Quartet Op.60 (performed in collaboration with Boris Kucharsky, Thomas Carroll and Gorka Plada), with Hindemith’s Viola Sonata Op.11 No.4 and Penderecki’s Cadenza for Solo viola. It received critical acclaim, such as in Gramophone Magazine’s review: 

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‘Kucharsky, Haag, Carroll and Plada capture the expressive turbulence of Brahms’s writing very finely; the Scherzo is full of passion, the Andante of romance. Much the same applies to Hindemith’s sonata; Haag and Girón give a thoroughly poised, sweet-toned performance (especially in the opening Fantasie) and render both sets of variations that follow with aplomb. Haag gets to the heart of Penderecki’s Cadenza very well indeed, projecting its retrospective romanticism very convincingly.'

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He is also a frequent participant in high-level chamber music forums and masterclasses such as the IMS Prussia Cove, Davos Festival academy, Colluvio Chamber music academy, Saline royale academy and many more, where he has taken guidance from musicians such as Robert Levin, Thomas Adès, Nobuko Imai, Lars Anders Tomter, Jean Sulem, , Levon Chilingirian, Krzysztof Chorzelski, HsinYun Huang, Wolfram Christ, Alexander Janiczek, Wenting Kang, Lawrence Power and Paul Coker. He has performed on stage with, among others, Roman Simovic, Krzysztof Chorlezski, SongHa Choi, Guy Ben-Ziony, Levon Chilingirian, Tianyou Ma, Matthew Huber, Thomas Carroll and Boris Kucharsky at various concerts and festivals. 

Hugo often organises concerts for diverse causes. Noteworthy occasions were such as in July of 2024, when he presented a benefit concert for the charity ‘Freedom from Torture’, an organisation which provides support for torture victims, in which he performed Bach’s first cello suite, Hindemith’s solo sonata Op.25 No.1 and Brahms’s 2nd string quintet Op.111, with Boris Kucharsky, Mee-Hyun Esther Park, Otoha Tabata and Matthew Huber at St John’s Downshire Hill. Or in September 2025 on request of the Menuhin family, he and former director of music Malcolm Singer curated the memorial concert for Yehudi Menuhin’s daughter, Zamira Menuhin-Benthall, at the Menuhin School. The event brought together a large number of alumni including artists such as Cosima and Sao Soulez Lariviere and culminated in an orchestral performance of Elgar’s string serenade which can be listened to here: https://www.menuhinschool.co.uk/news/remembering-zamira-menuhin-benthal.

 

In December 2026, he will present another alumni concert at the school, to include performances besides his own by Valeriy Sokolov, Jeremy Menuhin, SongHa Choi, Gorka Plada, Bartholomew LaFollette, Boris Kucharsky and more. Further details about the event may be found here: https://www.menuhinhall.co.uk/events/menuhin-alumni

As a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician he has played at venues including the Wigmore Hall, the Menuhin Hall, the Fundación Juan March in Madrid, the Barbican Hall and at the Church in Saanen as part of the Gstaad Menuhin festival in Switzerland. His performance of Brahms' piano quartet op.25 at the Wigmore Hall alongside other Menuhin school students received critical acclaim, with a review in the STRAD magazine as follows: ‘making a repertoire staple sound both profoundly lived-in and newly minted: a thoughtfully shaped performance, masterfully combining dazzle and dash with rhythmic precision and grandeur.’

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In August 2019, Hugo organized the first edition of the ‘Louis Kentner’ festival in Normandy France, paying homage to the great pianist, and which has taken place every year since under his musical directorship. The festival brings together both young and established professional musicians from across the world, so far from the conservatoires in Berlin, Paris, Cologne, Basel, Barcelona, Vienna, Hamburg, London and the USA. The 2025 festival also included presentations by the renowned filmmaker, Bruno Monsaingeon. The 2026 edition took place from the 23rd to 28th of August 2026: www.kentnerfestival.com. 

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In 2023, he was awarded first prize at the ‘string competition online’, for recordings of Bach, Britten, Hindemith and Brahms.

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Hugo’s first violin lesson was at age two, but it was only at seven that lessons with Patricia Birchall embedded his commitment to music. At eleven, he was admitted to the Yehudi Menuhin School, where he studied violin for five years with Russian pedagogue Lutsia Ibragimova. During this period, he developed a passion for the viola, performing on both instruments in chamber and orchestral ensembles. A few years later he dedicated himself entirely to the viola, studying with Boris Kucharsky, a former protégé of Yehudi Menuhin and Erick Friedman.

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After graduating from the Yehudi Menuhin School in 2020, Hugo continued his studies with Kucharsky at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he completed his Bachelor’s degree with honours in 2024. In September 2025, he began his Master’s performance studies at the Basel Musik-Akademie in Switzerland, working with Geneviève Strosser, and performing regularly, notably at the Davos, RheinKlassik and Interlaken Classics festivals.

Hugo performs on a viola made in 2021 by the luthier David Munro, based on the 1741 Carlo Antonio Testore viola formerly owned by Yehudi Menuhin, which Hugo was loaned for three years. He uses bows by leading makers Christophe Collinet, Noel Burke and Christian Barthe.