Final Concert of the International Cello Master Class led by Prof. Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt (Franz Liszt University of Music Weimar, Kronberg Academy)

Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt had already attracted attention at numerous competitions while studying with David Geringas and Aldo Parisot: At the International Rostropovich Competition, the jury, chaired by Mstislav Rostropovich, awarded him the Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris and the Prize for Contemporary Music.

He also won the prize at the German Music Competition in Bonn and first prize at the International Australasian Cello Competition in New Zealand. He is a prize winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the International Leonard Rose Cello Competition in the United States. Since then, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt has performed in Europe, Russia, and the USA as a soloist with renowned orchestras, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the NDR Radio Philharmonic, the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Prague and Ljubljana Radio Orchestras, the Baltimore and Houston Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonia, under conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Marek Janowski, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Yutaka Sado, Hugh Wolff, Jiri Belohlavek, Vassili Sinaiski, Gerd Albrecht, Andrey Boreyko, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Gabriel Feltz, Michael Sanderling, Markus Poschner, and Fabrice Bollon.

He is also a welcome guest at events such as the Ludwigsburg Castle Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, where he has already performed alongside Christoph Eschenbach.

Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt is also deeply committed to chamber music, where he has performed with leading artists such as Lang Lang, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Nikolaj Znaider, Leonidas Kavakos, Kyoko Takezawa, Miriam Fried, Edgar Meyer, and David Shifrin. He was also a member of the Chamber Music Society Two at Lincoln Center in New York and forms the cello duo “Cello Duello” with Jens Peter Maintz.

Concerts in recent seasons have taken him to the Berlin Philharmonie, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Philharmonie am Gasteig, and the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Kennedy Center in Washington, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, the Théâtre du Châtelet and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, Prague’s Rudolfinum, and Tokyo’s Suntory Hall.

His CD “French Impressions” was released in September 2001, followed in September 2004 by his critically acclaimed recording of Sergei Prokofiev’s cello concertos. Last year saw the release of his recording of the cello concertos by Schumann and Elgar. His recording of Bloch’s “Voice in the Wilderness” with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra was also released.

In 2013, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt was awarded the German Record Critics’ Prize and the Diapason d’Or for his recording of Carl Maria von Weber’s Piano Quartet (with Isabelle Faust, Boris Faust, and Alexander Melnikov). Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt plays a cello by Matteo Gofriller that formerly belonged to Hugo Becker.