Contact
Maike Charlotte Fuchsmf@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-220Victoria Monterovm@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-237General Management
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, String Quartet in D minor, KV 421
Johannes Brahms, Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34
Antje Weithaas, violin
Florian Donderer, violin
Barbara Buntrock, viola
Julian Steckel, violoncello
François-Frédéric Guy, piano
Yura Lee, violin
Anna Reszniak, violin
Jan Larsen, viola
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, violoncello
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Trio in E major for piano, violin and violoncello, KV 542
Ernest Chausson, Concerto for violin, piano and string quartet D major Op 21
Martin Helmchen, piano
Richard Strauss, Introduction to Capriccio
Leoš Janáček, Violin Sonata
Tanja Tetzlaff, violoncello
Igor Strawinsky, Suite italienne for Violoncello and Piano
Leoš Janáček, String Quartet No. 1 'Kreutzer sonata'
Olli Mustonen, Threnos in memoriam Lars Vogt
Arnold Schönberg, "Transfigured Night" Op. 4
Hanna Weinmeister, violin
Volker Jacobsen, viola
Gustav Rivinius, violoncello
Olli Mustonen, composition
Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Elisabeth Kufferath, violin
Johannes Brahms, Piano trio No. 2 C Major op. 87
Lili Boulanger, D'un matin de printemps
Franz Schubert, Piano quintet in A major D 667 "Trout Quintet"
Antonin Dvorak, Piano Quintet No. 2 A major Op. 81
Pauline Sachse, viola
Johann Sebastian Bach, Suite for Violoncello solo No 2 D minor, BWV1008
Johann Sebastian Bach, Chaconne from the Partita No. 2 D minor for solo violin, BWV 1004
Olivier Messiaen, Quatuor pour la fin du temps
Harriet Krijgh, violoncello
Sebastian Manz, clarinet
Camille Saint-Saëns, The Carnival of the Animals
Int. Künstler des Kammermusikfestivals “Fliessen”
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Piano trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66
Stephen Waarts, violin
Tobias Feldmann, violin
Timothy Ridout, viola
Robert Schumann, Three Romances for Cello and Piano, Op. 94
Cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker touches with the emotional unconditionality and warm sensitivity of her playing. With outward modesty and great inner richness, she feels the music down to the last cell. She herself says about the cello: "For me, it is the most versatile instrument: it can sing, be a pulse generator, the basis for all music, especially chamber music, the position of the tenor. Besides, you can play it very naturally, you don't have to contort yourself." She made her international breakthrough with her sensational success at the 8th Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 2005, where she became the first contestant in the event's history to win first prize as well as two special prizes.
Since then, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker has become one of the most sought-after soloists of the younger generation. Highlights of her career to date include performances with Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Belgian National Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Spanish National Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, and Wiener Symphoniker. She has collaborated with conductors such as Barenboim, Gergiev, Harding, Hengelbrock, Herreweghe, Janowski, Luisi, Nagano, Saraste, Thielemann, and von Dohnányi.
Especially with her husband, the pianist Martin Helmchen, she appears in recitals all over the world and has been a guest at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, L'Auditori Barcelona, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Bozar Brussels, the Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Wigmore Hall London, the Carnegie Hall New York, the Louvre Paris, the Toppan Hall Tokyo, the Konzerthaus Vienna and the Tonhalle Zurich, among others. She also regularly performs chamber music concerts in various formations with Antje Weithaas, Christian Tetzlaff, Stephen Waarts, Carolin Widmann and the Apollon Musagète Quartet. In 2023, the International Chamber Music Festival "Fliessen", curated by Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Martin Helmchen, will be created under the umbrella of the Brandenburgische Sommerkonzerte. In the Spreewald region and on the artists' campus of the Drauschemühle just outside Luckau, the artists want to play, live and perform chamber music from duos to octets.
Together with Martin Helmchen, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker premiered York Höller's new double concerto in the spring of 2022 at the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Kölner Philharmonie, which will be performed this season in Kronberg at the opening festival of the Casals Forum and at the Ultraschall Festival in 2023.
In May 2016, the label Alpha Classics released Marie-Elisabeth Hecker's recording of Brahms' cello sonatas together with Martin Helmchen to great critical acclaim. Recently, her second CD containing Schubert´s Arpeggione Sonata and Trio No. 2 (together with Martin Helmchen and Antje Weithaas) has been released by the same label alongside a CD with Elgar's Cello Concerto (together with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra) and the Piano Quintet.
Born in Robert Schumann’s hometown Zwickau in 1987, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker started playing the cello at the age of five and attended the Robert Schumann Conservatory, before the distinguished German cellist Peter Bruns became her principal teacher. She continued her studies with Heinrich Schiff and subsequently took part in masterclasses with eminent figures such as Anner Bylsma, Bernard Greenhouse, Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman and Steven Isserlis. In 2009, she won a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. She was appointed a professor at Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden in August 2017. In cooperation with Music Road Rwanda, she regularly travels to Rwanda in order to support a local music school with concerts and educational projects.
2022/2023 season
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.
Duo with Martin Helmchen (piano)M. Weinberg: Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2, Op. 63 S. Prokofiev: Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 119S. Rachmaninov: Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 19
L.v. Beethoven: Variations (all of them are possible)S. Prokofiev: Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 119G. Fauré: Elegie, Sicilienne, PapillonF. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Cello Sonata in D major, Op. 58
Trio with Antje Weithaas (violin) and Martin Helmchen (piano)F. Schubert: Piano Trio No. 1 B-flat major, Op. 99 D. 898 P. Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio A minor, Op. 50
(for the season of 2024/25)
Haydn: Celloconcert in C - Marie-Elisabeth Hecker & Radio Kamer Filharmonie [HD]
Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, op. 85 - III. Adagio, IV. Allegro ma non troppo
Schubert Sonate a-Moll D821 "Arpeggione " 2. und 3.Satz, Adagio und Allegretto
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Edo De Waart, Carolin Widmann, David McCarroll, Pauline Sachse, Martin Helmchen
Alpha, 2018, 283
Antje Weithaas, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Martin Helmchen
Alpha. 2017, 284
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Martin Helmchen
Alpha, 2016, 223
Aaron Pilsan, Alissa Margulis, Marie Elisabeth Hecker
Avi Music, 2014, 8553265