Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt

Cello

– General Management – 

Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt is one of the outstanding cellists of his generation and has been delighting international concert audiences for many years with his exceptional musicality, virtuosity and charismatic stage presence.
Even whilst studying under David Geringas and Aldo Parisot, he caused a sensation at major international competitions. At the International Rostropovich Competition in Paris, he was awarded the Grand Prix de la Ville de Paris as well as the prize for contemporary music. Further international successes followed, including at the German Music Competition, the International Australasian Cello Competition and at prestigious competitions in Moscow and the USA.
His concert career has taken him to the world’s great stages – from the Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, through the Kennedy Centre and Wigmore Hall, to Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Europe’s major concert halls. As a soloist, he has performed with leading international orchestras under conductors such as Marek Janowski, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
Schmidt also enjoys the highest international reputation as a chamber musician. He has collaborated with artists such as Lang Lang, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham, Isabelle Faust, Leonidas Kavakos and Nikolaj Znaider and was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Centre in New York. Together with Jens Peter Maintz, he forms the acclaimed cello duo ‘Cello Duello’.
His award-winning CD recordings on Sony Classical and Capriccio demonstrate an extraordinary artistic range. For a recording featuring works by Carl Maria von Weber, he received the German Record Critics’ Prize and the Diapason d’Or.
Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt now captivates audiences not only as a soloist but also as a conductor. As founder and principal conductor of the Metamorphosen Berlin Chamber Orchestra, he combines the highest standards of interpretative artistry with visionary musical interpretation.
Alongside his international concert career, Schmidt passes on his experience to the next generation as a much sought-after teacher. He teaches as a professor at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar, the Berlin University of the Arts and the Kronberg Academy.
Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt plays a precious Matteo Gofriller cello formerly owned by Hugo Becker – an instrument with an extraordinary history for an artist of extraordinary stature.
If you’d like, I can also turn this into an even more glamorous ‘Hollywood/world star’ version with greater star appeal and fewer classical technical terms – or a version as an exclusive artist announcement for a concert programme.