Julian Steckel

“A musician who lets the notes dance rather than whirl, an exceptional cellist who draws out things in the music that perhaps even the composers never knew were there.” Fono Forum

Always ready to place himself wholly in the service of the music and his audience, cellist Julian Steckel delves deeply into a score to uncover the inner connections and forces that hold a piece together. His energetic power stems from a cultivated simplicity that enables effortless playing and seemingly limitless technical ability. “As an interpreter I trust my inner landscape more and more and let the audience in. It is a vulnerability that ultimately makes you stronger,” he says.

During the 2026/27 season, his engagements will take him to the Pohang Music Festival and to Taiwan, amongst other places, where he will first perform Haydn’s Sinfonia concertante at the National Symphony Orchestra’s New Year’s Eve concert and will subsequently appear in four chamber concerts as part of the Paul Huang & Friends concert series. Other highlights include Anna Thorvalsdottir’s cello concerto Before We Fall with the Belgian National Orchestra under Michael Schønwandt, as well as Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 with Het Residentie Orkest. The start of the season also includes a lot of chamber music: as artistic director of the ‘vielsaitig’ festival in Füssen, he will present a varied programme in the town, which is regarded as the historic centre of European lute and violin making. Performances with renowned partners such as Carolin Widmann, Nils Mönkemeyer and William Youn, Dénes Várjon, Ning Feng, Adrien La Marca, Frank Dupree, Karen Gomyo and Matan Porat will take him to venues including the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London and the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf.

Highlights of previous seasons include the opening of the Dvořák Festival in Prague together with the Bamberger Symphoniker and Jakub Hrůša, his debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Ruth Reinhardt, Walton’s Cello Concerto with Tianyi Lu in Leipzig, Strauss’s Don Quixote with the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra under Elias Grandy in Japan, as well as Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under Tabita Berglund. He performed all of Bach’s Cello Suites in Shanghai and Beijing before returning to the Musikverein Vienna and Festspielhaus St. Pölten to perform Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Tonkünstler Orchestra and Tomáš Netopil – a work he also played that season with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Ana María Patiño-Osorio. Further performances included Saint-Saëns with the Orquesta de Extremadura as well as his debut with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra performing Haydn. He also played Gulda’s Concerto for Cello and Wind Orchestra with the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec under Clemens Schuldt, where he has been a regular guest in recent seasons. He subsequently also performed Gulda’s work with Sinfonia Varsovia in Warsaw.

Chamber music – a constant source of inspiration and the communicative backbone of his musicianship – has brought him together with partners such as Janine Jansen, Christian Tetzlaff, Antje Weithaas, Vilde Frang, Sharon Kam, Antoine Tamestit, Lars Vogt, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Martin Helmchen, Timothy Ridout, and the Modigliani, Armida and Ébène Quartets. Most recently, chamber music projects have taken him to venues including the Alte Oper Frankfurt and on a tour of Japan, as well as to the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam with the Leonkoro Quartet.

Julian Steckel’s solo career gained significant momentum when he won the ARD International Music Competition in 2010. Since then he has appeared with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Munich Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, working with conductors including Iván Fischer, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Roger Norrington, Nicholas Collon, Fabien Gabel, John Storgårds, Lahav Shani, Gustavo Gimeno, Katharina Wincor and Daniele Rustioni.

Julian Steckel’s discography includes several acclaimed duo recordings with pianist Paul Rivinius, featuring works by Mendelssohn, French cello sonatas, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev; and, with Antje Weithaas, sonatas by Kodály. His recording of the cello concertos by Korngold, Bloch and Goldschmidt with the Rheinische Philharmonie under Daniel Raiskin received the ECHO Klassik award. He has also recorded the cello concertos of C. P. E. Bach with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducted by Susanne von Gutzeit.

He studied with Ulrich Voss, Gustav Rivinius, Boris Pergamenschikow, Heinrich Schiff and Antje Weithaas. “My very first teacher made lightness and simplicity the central principles of playing. Listen to yourself, plan what you do, and do it right the first time. I owe everything to that insight,” Julian Steckel explains. Today he passes on that approach to the next generation as Professor of Violoncello at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich.

Season 2026/27

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