Joel Blido

10. October 2019/in 2020 /by Jane Pagel

Joel Blido was born in 1998 into a family of musicians. He began taking cello lessons at the age of 4. He had his debut as a soloist with the chamber orchestra Bad Mergentheim at the age of 10. At the TONALi competition 2018 he won the Weinberg special price for his outstanding performance of contemporary music. In 2019 he won a scholarship and a special prize at the German national music competition. He also won a first prize at the „Giovanni Musicisti“-competition in Treviso, Italy.

At the age of 10 he was accepted into the Pre-College of the University of Music Würzburg, into the class of Orfeo Mandozzi. He started his Bachelor-studies at the age of 15. Since 2015 he studies in Weimar in the class of Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. In addition he also regularly works with David Geringas. 2014 he invited Joel to play with him in the Philharmonie Berlin. They have played several concerts as a duo since then. Joel has participated in a lot of masterclasses with renowned cellists such as Jens-Peter Maintz, Michael Sanderling, Raphael Wallfisch, Pieter Wispelwey, Istvan Vardai, David Grigorian, Zvi Plesser and Hillel Zori.

As a soloist he played with conductors such as Alessandro Cadario, Peter Vrabel, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Desar Sulejmani and orchestras such as the Albanian national radio-television orchestra, the Opera orchestra Tirana, the chamber orchestra Pforzheim, and the Heinrich-Heine symphonic orchestra. He played many concerts across Europe, at festivals such as the Interlaken Classics Festival, the Usedom Music Festival, the Accademia Chigiana Siena, the Feuchtwanger Piano Festival, The Durres Chamber Fest (Albania), and the Different Trains Festival Tirana.

In 2017 he received a „diploma di merito“ from the Accademia Chigiana Siena for his exceptional artistic involvement.

Leonard Elschenbroich

21. September 2018/in Festival Akademie /by Jane Pagel

Leonard Elschenbroich has established himself as one of the most charismatic cellists of his generation renowned for his passionate and compelling performances. His awards include the Leonard Bernstein Award, Förderpreis Deutschlandfunk, Eugene Istomin Prize, and a Borletti Buitoni Trust Award. He was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist (2012-14), Artist-in-Residence at Deutschlandfunk (2014-15) and Artist-in-Residence at the Philharmonic Society Bremen (2013-16).

Elschenbroich has worked with a number of eminent conductors including Bychkov, Eschenbach, Dutoit, Honeck, Karabits, Kitajenko, Litton, Mena, Gardner, Tortelier and Sinaisky. He has performed with orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, WDR Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, NDR Hanover, Dresden Staatskapelle, Bergen Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, Polish National Radio Symphony, Filharmónica de Sevilla, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Swedish Radio Symphony, St Petersburg Philharmonic and the Netherlands Philharmonic. Further afield his performances include the Japan Philharmonic, Nagoya Philharmonic, New Zealand Symphony, Tasmanian Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, Minnesota Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has made seven appearances at the BBC Proms.

A committed chamber musician, Elschenbroich has appeared at the Wigmore Hall, Auditorium du Louvre, Concertgebouw, Frick Collection, Ravinia Festival in Chicago and the Lucerne, Gstaad, Rheingau, Mecklenburg Vorpommern and Schleswig Holstein Music festivals with regular chamber music partners including Nicola Benedetti and Alexei Grynyuk. With the Benedetti/Eschenbroich/ Grynyuk Trio he recently toured the USA and South America and will tour Australia this season.

He is an enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music and has championed cello concertos by Gilbert Amy, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Peteris Vasks and Magnus Lindberg and last season stepped in at short notice to give the world premiere of Brian Elias’ Cello Concerto at the BBC Proms. He has commissioned several new works from composers including Turnage, Luca Lombardi, Arlene Sierra and Suzanne Farrin and in April 2018 gave the world premiere of Mark Simpson’s Cello Concerto which was specially written for him on a commission from the BBC.

Elschenbroich’s debut CD (2013) for Onyx Classics of Rachmaninov and Shostakovich sonatas received 5-star reviews from the Telegraph, Guardian as well as Editor’s Choice in Gramophone. Subsequent releases include Kabalevsky’s Cello Concerto No 2 with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra/Litton, a Hommage to Schnittke and a CD of French repertoire including concertos by Dutilleux and Saint-Saëns. A complete Beethoven Cello Sonata cycle (2 CDs) will be released in early 2019.

He is a fervent supporter of the emergent musical community in Bolivia and is Artistic Mentor of the Orquesta Filarmonica de Bolivia, the country’s first national orchestra, which he co-founded in 2012. He returns to Bolivia on a regular basis both for performances and to lead educational projects and has an increasing presence elsewhere in South America performing with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Belo Horizonte Orchestra and Medellin Philharmonic as well as in recitals.

Born in 1985 in Frankfurt, Elschenbroich received a scholarship, aged ten, to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School in the UK and continued his studies with Frans Helmerson at the Cologne Music Academy. He plays a cello made by Matteo Goffriller “Leonard Rose” (Venice, 1693), on private loan.

Truls Mørk

Truls Mørk’s compelling performances, combining fierce intensity, integrity and grace, have established him as one of the pre-eminent cellists of our time.

He is a celebrated artist who performs with the most distinguished orchestras including the Orchestre de Paris, Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker, Philharmonia and London Philharmonic orchestras and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In North America he has appeared withthe New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Conductor collaborations include Mariss Jansons, David Zinman, Manfred Honeck, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Christoph Eschenbach, amongst others.

During the 2017/18 season, Truls Mørk returns to Orchestre National de France and to the Czech Philharmonic. The season also includes Grafenegg Festival and a tour of Switzerland, a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York together with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and he will appear in three performances in Salzburg as part of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s residency under Susanna Mälkki. He continues to give regular recitals at major venues and festivals throughout the world. He has recently developed a collaboration with Behzod Abduraimov which will see them perform on tour in the US and Europe.

A great champion of contemporary music, Truls Mørk has given in excess of 30 premieres. These include Rautavaara’s Towards the Horizon with the BBC Symphony Orchestra/John Storgårds, Pavel Haas’ Cello Concerto with Wiener Philharmoniker/Jonathan Nott, Krzysztof Penderecki’s Concerto for Three Cellos with the NHK Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit and Haflidi Hallgrimsson’s Cello Concerto, co-commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony and Scottish Chamber orchestras.

With an impressive recording output, Truls Mørk has recorded many of the great cello concertos for labels such as Virgin Classics, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Ondine, Arte Nova and Chandos many of which have won international awards including Gramophone, Grammy, Midem and ECHO Klassik awards. These include Dvořák’s Concerto (Mariss Jansons/Oslo Philharmonic), Britten’s Cello Symphony and Elgar’s Concerto (Sir Simon Rattle/CBSO), Miaskovsky Concerto and Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante (Paavo Järvi/CBSO), Dutilleux (Myung-Whun Chung/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France), CPE Bach (Bernard Labadie/Les Violons du Roy), Haydn’s Concertos (Iona Brown/Norwegian Chamber Orchestra), Rautavaara’s Towards the Horizon (John Storgårds/Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra) as well as the complete Bach Cello Suites and Britten Cello Suites. His most recent recordings include Shostakovich’s Concertos with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko, works for cello and orchestra by Massenet with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Neeme Järvi and the Saint-Saens Concertos together with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Neeme Järvi.

Initially taught by his father, Truls Mørk continued his studies with Frans Helmerson, Heinrich Schiff and Natalia Schakowskaya. In his early career he won a number of competitions such as the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition

(1982), Cassado Cello Competition in Florence (1983), the Unesco Prize at the European Radio-Union competition in Bratislava (1983) and the Naumberg Competition in New York (1986).

Truls Mørk & Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra

25. September 2018/in /by Jane Pagel

Mitten wir im Leben sind/Bach6cellosuiten

21. September 2017/in /by Jane Pagel

A production of Rosas. A coproduction with Ruhrtriennale, La Monnaie / De Munt (Brussel / Bruxelles), Concertgebouw Brugge, Le Theatre de la Ville with Festival d’Automne a Paris, Sadler’s Wells (London), Les Theatres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Opera de Lille, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) and Montpellier Danse 2018.

In cooperation mit dem UnterwegsTheater/Kunstlerhaus/HebelHalle

Mitten wir im Leben sind/Bach6cellosuiten

18. September 2017/in /by Jane Pagel

A production of Rosas. A coproduction with Ruhrtriennale, La Monnaie / De Munt (Brussel / Bruxelles), Concertgebouw Brugge, Le Theatre de la Ville with Festival d’Automne a Paris, Sadler’s Wells (London), Les Theatres de la Ville de Luxembourg, Opera de Lille, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele, Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) and Montpellier Danse 2018.

In cooperation mit dem UnterwegsTheater/Kunstlerhaus/HebelHalle