Nicolas Altstaedt

Nicolas Altstaedt (born 1982) is a German classical cellist.

Biography and career

Born in 1982 into a family of German and French descent, Nicolas Altstaedt was one of Boris Pergamenschikow's last students in Berlin, where he has continued his studies with Eberhard Feltz.

He has won a number of prizes and awards, such as the 2004 Landgrave of Hesse Prize of the Kronberg Academy, first prize at the 2005 German Music Competition, the 2005 International Domnick Cello Competition, Stuttgart, and the 2006 Adam International Cello Competition, New Zealand, the 2010 Kulturstiftung Dortmund prize and the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award 2010.[1] He is a BBC New Generation Artist 2010-2012, a member of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, and he received a Borletti Buitoni Fellowship in 2009.[2]

Nicolas Altstaedt has been suggested by Gidon Kremer to become his successor as the new artistic director of the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival from 2012.

Highlights of past and upcoming seasons are concerts with the Tonhalle Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Tapiola Sinfonietta, Camerata Bern, Kremerata Baltica, the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestras Berlin, Stuttgart and Helsinki , the Melbourne- and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras, Bamberger Symphoniker, the Munich, Zurich and Stuttgart chamber orchestras and the Haydn Philharmonie Austria/Hungary. He performs under the baton of David Zinman, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Neeme Järvi, Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Roger Norrington, Sir Andrew Davis, Mario Venzago, Andrej Boreyko, Adam Fischer, Dennis Russell Davies and Alexander Shelley.

He feels a deep commitment to contemporary music and performs with the composers Thomas Ades, Jörg Widmann, Matthias Pintscher, Fazil Say, Sofia Gubaidulina and Moritz Eggert. He has performed the Double concerto by György Kurtág at the composers' 85th birthday concert 2011 in Budapest, played the Swiss premiere of G.F. Haas Cello concerto and will play Wolfgang Rihm's Cello Concerto "Versuchung" for the composers' 60th birthday this year. Commissions by Fazil Say, Thomas Larcher and Raphael Merlin had been premiered 2012 in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam amongst others.

He appears in concert around the globe with such artists as Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Janine Jansen, Daniel Hope, Leif Ove Andsnes, the Sasha Waltz dance company and is a regular guest at festivals such as Jerusalem, Kaposvar, Salzburg Summer and Salzburg Mozart Festival. His regular chamber music partners are Vilde Frang, Alexander Lonquich, Barnabás Kelemen, Pekka Kuusisto, Antoine Tamestit, Jonathan Cohen and the Quatuor Ébène.

Altstaedt has recorded several CDs for the Genuin, Naxos, Claves, Orfeo and ECM labels, performing music by Schumann, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, and a recital of French music by Pierne, d'Indy and Boulanger.

References

  1. ↑ "Credit Suisse - Nicolas Altstaedt Honored for his "Short Life's Work"". Emagazine.credit-suisse.com. 2011-12-16. Retrieved 2012-01-29.
  2. ↑ Nicolas Altstaedt. "Nicolas Altstaedt - Fellowship Winner 2009 - Borletti-Buitoni Trust". Bbtrust.com. Retrieved 2012-01-29.

External links