Christoph Richter

After his studies with André Navarra and Pierre Fournier he won prizes at international competitions, and now plays as soloist with many leading orchestras. He is frequently invited to international festivals, including Ittingen, Risor and Salzburg where he premiered Henze’s Introduction, Theme and Variations for cello and orchestra. His strong interest in contemporary music has led him to work with composers such as Penderecki, Kurtág, Henze, Lachenmann, Holliger, Reimann and Widmann. In 2011 he was artistic director of a festival in London which honoured the composer, oboist and conductor Heinz Holliger.

He performed the complete cello and piano works of Beethoven at the Kings Place Beethoven Festival in London 2009, at the Brahms Festival 2012 he played the Double concerto, and at the Bach Festival 2013 a cycle of all the Solo cello suites and the Gamba sonatas. Other concerts in 2013 included a recital at Wigmore Hall, London and concerts in Seoul (South Korea), Rotterdam, Luxemburg, Brussels, Cologne, Salzburg and Bonn.

Amongst his many recordings are works by Schumann and Holliger for ECM, concertos by Klengel for cpo, the Divertimento KV 563 by Mozart with Henning Kraggerud and Lars Anders Tomter for Naxos and the Brahms Sextet op.36 with Isabelle Faust and others for Harmonia Mundi, which received the Diapason D’Or.

It was his close collaboration with Sandor Végh which led him to a life long passion for chamber music, and particularly string quartet. He joined the Cherubini Quartet with whom he performed in all the major concert halls around the world. With the pianist András Schiff he performs sonatas, piano trios, quartets and quintets, and he has been principal cellist of his chamber orchestra Cappella Andrea Barca since its foundation in 1999. This ensemble appears annually at the Mozartwoche in Salzburg and the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza and gives concerts all over the world (New York, Vienna, Zurich, Brussels, Geneva, Luxemburg and other cities).