| Biography | Alban Gerhardt (born 25 May 1969) is a German cellist. He has performed as a soloist with many internationally known orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He plays a cello made by Matteo Gofriller in 1710.
Gerhardt was born in Berlin, where his father was a violinist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He took up both the piano and the cello at the age of eight and studied with Marion Vetter and Götz Teutsch of the Berlin Philharmonic, and eventually began working under Markus Nyikos.
Early on in his career Gerhardt took the top prize in several competitions: the 1990 Deutsche Musikwettbewerb Bonn, the ARD Competition that same year, and the Leonard Rose Competition in 1993.
Gerhardt's first public performance came on 22 February 1987, when he played Haydn's Cello Concerto No.2 in D with a chamber orchestra in the Berliner Philharmonie. His international career was launched in 1991 when he made his debut with Berliner Philharmoniker with Semyon Bychkov conducting. Since then he has gone on to perform with many of the worlds great orchestras including Royal Concertgebouw, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, NHK Symphony, Chicago Symphony orchestras and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich.
Alban Gerhardt also tours extensively performing chamber music and in 2015 embarked on a European tour with Baiba Skride, Gergana Gergova, Nils Mönkemeyer and Brett Dean to venues including Wigmore Hall in London,[8] Bozar in Brussels and Essens Philharmonie. The ensemble performed music by Brahms, Mozart and Brett Dean. Gerhardt regularly collaborates with composers including Thomas Larcher, Brett Dean, Jörg Widmann, and Matthias Pintscher. At the 2009 BBC Proms[9] he performed the world premiere of Unsuk Chins Cello Concerto[10] where The Guardian said The hugely challenging cello part was composed specifically for Alban Gerhardt, who made its difficulties and teeming luminous detail seem the most naturally expressive things in the world, playing from memory and maintaining perfect coordination and balance with Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony. It's a major addition to the concerto repertory.
Gerhardt has won three ECHO Klassik Awards (1998, 2003 & 2009 as well as ICMA and MIDEM] Classic awards. His recording of Unsuk Chins Cello Concerto, released by Deutsche Grammophon, won the BBC Music Magazine Award in 2015 and was shortlisted for a Gramophone Award in 2015. He also records extensively for Hyperion.
Over the years Alban Gerhardt has undertaken numerous projects that have seen him perform outside of the traditional concert hall: in schools and hospitals and young offender institutions. In 2012 he also began collaboration with Deutsche Bahn, involving live performances on the main commuter routes in Germany. (June 2016) |