Alban Gerhardt has established himself in the past decade among the great cellists of our time. His sound is unmistakable, and his interpretations distinguish themselves with great originality. The cello starts singing under his hands, known literature gets newly discovered, unkown works come to life again. The fortunate combination of an unerring musical instinct, intense emotionality and a very natural, arresting stage presence fascinate his growing audiences, particularly as after the loss of his Guadagnini cello he now has a unique instrument from the hands of Matteo Gofriller at his disposal. A special concern for him is to break with old listening and concert habits and to open classical music to a younger audience.
After early successes at competitions and his debut as a 21-year-old with the Berlin Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov he started his career seventeen years ago, which led him in the meanwhile to more than 160 different orchestras worldwide, among which you’ll find most or the top European and American orchestras led by conductors such as Kurt Masur, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Neville Marriner, Marek Janowski, Sir Colin Davis, Leonard Slatkin, Fabio Luisi, Sakari Oramo, Paavo und Neeme Järvi.
In the past two years he had his debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra (J.Conlon), Boston Symphony, National Symphony and NDR Hamburg (all under C.v.Dohnanyi), San Francisco Symphony (M.Tilson-Thomas), Los Angeles Philharmonic at Hollywood Bowl and Disney Hall (Y.Kreizberg and Aboreyko) and Cleveland Orchestra (M.Hardt-Bedoya).
He will perform in the near future among many other engagements with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Christian Thielemann (Schumann), the Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio with Lisa Batiashvili (H.Graf/Brahms Double), Gewandhaus Leipzig (D.Kitaenko), the BBC Symphony (John Adams/Britten Cellosymphony), Orchestre Suisse Romande, KBS Seoul (C.P.Flor) and Toronto Symphony (P.Oundijan).
Alban Gerhardt‘s repertoire is extensive.He played already more than 50 different cello concerti, among them some new discoveries. His collaboration with composers like Unsuk Chin, Peteris Vasks, Brett Dean, Jörg Widmann, Osvaldo Golijov, Mathias Hinke and Matthias Pintscher demonstrate his interest in enlarging the cello repertoire. He is looking forward to premièring the cello concerto by Unsuk Chin which he will perform at the Proms 2008 in London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Chamber music plays in spite of his intensive soloistic occupation an important role in his life: at international festivals like the „Proms“ in London and the Edinburgh Festival, in prestigious halls like the Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Suntory Hall Tokyo and the Chatelet Paris he plays regulary with colleagues such as Steven Osborne, Cecile Licad, Lars Vogt, Christian Tetzlaff, Lisa Batiashvili, Julia Fischer, Tabea Zimmermann and Emmanuel Pahud.
His cd's have been highly acclaimed and in 1998 and 2003 he was awarded with the ECHO Classic Award. His first recording for the distinguished British label Hyperion with whom he entered a long-term relationship features concertos by Enescu, Dohnanyi and d‘Albert and won the Midem Classic Award 06 in Cannes, followed by a recital cd with Steven Osborne (works by Schnittke and Shostakovich). Recently released has been the second volume of the “Romantic Cello Concertos” with concertos by Schumann, Gernsheim, Dietrich and Volkmann (Radiosymphonieorchester Berlin under Hannu Lintu). Before he had already recorded on EMI, Harmonia Mundi, Chandos and the BBC Music Magazin concertos by Dvorak, Barber, Berkeley, Brahms, Bridge, Jacobi, Rubinstein as well as several recital cd‘s.
Alban Gerhardt‘s most important teachers were Boris Pergamenschikow, Markus Nyikos and Frans Helmerson.
