Nicolas Altstaedt

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

Biography and career

German/French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt is a versatile artist who is equally at home performing on period instruments, playing classical repertoire and commissioning new music. He was one of Boris Pergamenschikow's last students in Berlin, where he has continued his studies with Eberhard Feltz.

After winning several international competitions and a Borletti Buitoni Fellowship in 2009, Nicolas Altstaedt was awarded the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award 2010, for part of which he performed with the Vienna Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel at the Lucerne Festival. ^[1] As a BBC New Generation Artist 2010-2012 he has performed with all BBC Orchestras, at the Proms and at the Wigmore Hall. ^[2]

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. 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, Thomas Hengelbrock, Kristjan Järvi, Gustavo Gimeno, Andrew Manze, Fabien Gabel, Lahav Shani and Alexander Shelley.

He feels a deep commitment to contemporary music and gave the first performances of the concertos by Wolfgang Rihm, Georg Friedrich Haas, Nico Muhly and performs with the composers Jörg Widmann, Matthias Pintscher, Fazil Say, Bryce Dessner and Sofia Gubaidulina. Fazil Say dedicated his cello sonata to him and Sofia Gubaidulina is writing at the moment a triple concerto for him, Gidon Kremer and the bayan player Elsbeth Moser.

Nicolas regularly appears at the Salzburg Mozart Festival and Summer Festival, Verbier, Utrecht,Proms,Lucerne, Gstaad, Musikfest Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau and Stavanger. His chamber music partners include Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Janine Jansen, Daniel Hope, Leif Ove Andsnes, the Sasha Waltz dance company, Vilde Frang, Alexander Lonquich, Fazil Say, Pekka Kuusisto, Antoine Tamestit, Jonathan Cohen and the Quatuor Ébène.

In 2012 Gidon Kremer proposed Nicolas Altstaedt to succeed him as the new artistic director of the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival. Since then the festival has also been touring and performing at the Mozarteum Salzburg, Wiener Konzerthaus, Tonhalle Zürich and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. In 2015 Nicolas was appointed Artistic Director of the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonie to follow Adam Fischer, leading the ensemble from the cello as well as conducting the symphonic repertoire. Last season Nicolas was chosen as Artist in Residence at the Zermatt Festival by the members of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and became the first Artist in Resonance at Musikkollegium Winterthur.

Next season Nicolas will be on tour with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, returning to the BBC SSO, SWR Stuttgart, Orchestra Svizzera Italiana and playing debuts at the NDR Hamburg and Hanover, DSO Berlin, MDR Leipzig and Rotterdam Philharmonic. He will perform all Beethoven Sonatas with Alexander Lonquich at the Beethoven festivals in Bonn, Warsaw, Gstaad, the complete cycle of Bach suites in Seoul and Grenoble and direct the Viva Cello festival in Liestal, where he also plans a new creation with pianist and composer Hauschka. He will also become Artist in Residence at the Duisburger Philharmoniker. Recordings include cello concertos from Joseph Haydn to György Ligeti. Next releases are all C.Ph.E.Bach concertos with Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen; Shostakovich and Weinberg concertos with Michal Nesterowicz and DSO Berlin and a recital CD with Fazil Say. Nicolas Altstaedt plays a Giulio Cesare Gigli cello from Rome around 1760.

References

External links

• Nicolas Altstaedt's web site
• Nicolas Altstaedt's biography and discography on the Naxos web site
• Nicolas Altstaedt's biography on the BBC Music web site