Career
Baillie frequently appears as a concerto soloist all around the world. He has been a soloist at the BBC Proms numerous times, having performed the Schumann, Delius and Beethoven Triple Concertos, as well as various premieres of contemporary works. British Orchestras he has performed with include the London Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony, BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland. He has also directed and performed the Haydn and Boccherini concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra.
He has made a significant contribution to contemporary music, having premiered various works such as Penderecki's Cello Concerto No. 2 in 1992, H. K. Gruber's Concerto, and Andrew MacDonald's concerto. At the BBC Proms, he gave debut performances of Colin Matthews' Concerto in 1984, Henze's "Sieben Liebeslieder" in 1988 under the composer's direction, and Takemitsu's "Orion and Pleiades" in 1989. Other works by contemporary composers he regularly performs include Lutoslawski's Cello Concerto, which he has performed twice with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland.
As well as being a prolific performer, Baillie frequently teaches both privately and in masterclasses. Currently he is professor of cello at the Bremen Hochschule in Germany, as well as International Chair in Cello at Birmingham Conservatoire and visiting professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Royal College of Music. He also makes numerous appearances at summer music courses, including Cadenza International Summer School and the Bryanston International Cello Course in the South of England. In addition, Baillie is a regular conductor of the Marryat Players in Wimbledon.
Paul Tortelier was a French cellist and composer. After an outstanding student career at the Conservatoire de Paris he played in orchestras in France and the US before the Second World War. After the war he became a well-known soloist, playing in countries round the globe. He taught at conservatoires in France, Germany and China, and gave televised masterclasses in England. He was particularly associated with the solo part in Richard Strauss's Don Quixote, cello concertos by Elgar and others, and Bach's Cello Suites.
Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist, conductor and broadcaster, a former principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the founder of the In Harmony music education programme.
Natalie Clein is a British classical cellist. Her mother is a professional violinist. Her sister is the actress Louisa Clein.
The Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, by Robert Schumann was completed in a period of only two weeks, between 10 October and 24 October 1850, shortly after Schumann became the music director at Düsseldorf.
Thomas Joseph Edmund Adès is a British composer, pianist and conductor. Five compositions by Adès received votes in the 2017 Classic Voice poll of the greatest works of art music since 2000: The Tempest (2004), Violin Concerto (2005), Tevot (2007), In Seven Days (2008), and Polaris (2010).
The Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B. 191, is the last solo concerto by Antonín Dvořák. It was written in 1894 for his friend, the cellist Hanuš Wihan, but was premiered in London on March 19, 1896, by the English cellist Leo Stern.
Colin Matthews, OBE is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, Britten, Dowland, Mahler, Purcell and Schubert. Other arrangements include orchestrations of all Debussy's 24 Préludes, both books of Debussy's Images, and two movements—Oiseaux tristes and La vallée des cloches—from Ravel's Miroirs. Having received a doctorate from University of Sussex on the works of Mahler, from 1964–1975 Matthews worked with his brother David Matthews and musicologist Deryck Cooke on completing a performance version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony.
Camille Saint-Saëns composed his Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 33, in 1872, when he was 37 years old. He wrote this work for the French cellist, viola da gamba player and instrument maker Auguste Tolbecque. Tolbecque was part of a distinguished family of musicians closely associated with the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, France's leading concert society. The concerto was first performed on January 19, 1873, at the Paris Conservatoire concert with Tolbecque as soloist. This was considered a mark of Saint-Saëns' growing acceptance by the French musical establishment.
Guy Johnston is a British cellist and the winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in 2000. He has subsequently enjoyed a successful international career as a soloist and chamber musician and currently serves as an associate professor of Cello at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester New York.
Alban Gerhardt is a German cellist. Since his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1991, he has appeared with many of the world's leading orchestras.
Jian Wang is a Chinese cellist. A soloist, chamber musician, recording artist and teacher, he was the first Chinese musician to ever sign an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon.
Andrew Shulman is an English virtuoso cellist, conductor and composer. He is currently the principal cellist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and maintains his cello studio at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music in Los Angeles, California.
Dejan Lazić is a Croatian pianist and composer, and a naturalised Austrian citizen. He has appeared with such orchestras as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Bamberger Symphoniker, Swedish Radio, Danish National, Helsinki Philharmonic, Australian Chamber Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra, working with such conductors as Iván Fischer, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Giovanni Antonini, Kirill Petrenko, Robert Spano and John Storgårds.
The Russian-born British/German cellist Leonid Gorokhov studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire with Anatoli Nikitin and took part in masterclasses with Daniil Shafran. Winner of Concertino Praga and Paris Chamber Music Competition, Leonid Gorokhov is the only Russian cellist to be awarded the Grand Prix and the First Prize of the Geneva Concours (1986). In 1995 the European Association for Encouragement of the Arts awarded the Cultural Achievement Prize to Leonid Gorokhov for exceptional talent and outstanding artistic accomplishment.
Charlotte Bray is a British composer. She was championed by the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London Sinfonietta and Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Symphony Orchestra. Her music has been performed by many notable conductors such as: Sir Mark Elder, Oliver Knussen, Daniel Harding, and Jac van Steen.
Nicolas Altstaedt is a German-French cellist. His versatile career incorporates solo performance, chamber music, conducting, and artistic programming, with a repertoire spanning from early music to the contemporary.
Li-Wei Qin is a Chinese-Australian cellist. He won the Silver Medal at the 11th International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1998, and First Prize at the 2001 International Naumburg Competition in New York.
Kristin Merscher is a German classical pianist and professor at the Hochschule für Musik Saar in Saarbrücken, Germany.
Wolfgang Marschner was a German violinist, teacher of violin, composer and conductor. He was concertmaster of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, and instrumental in world premieres of contemporary music. He was professor at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen, the Musikhochschule Köln, the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music and, for more than three decades, at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. He also taught at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse.
John David Davis, often known as J D Davis, was an English composer, born in Edgbaston, near Birmingham.
