©Photo: Marco Borggreve

©Photo: Marco Borggreve

Nicolas Altstaedt

Cello / Conductor

Home
Reviews
Features
Discography

“The cellist Nicolas Altstaedt is an artist a category on its own”
(Hamburger Abendblatt)

Artistic Director: Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival

German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt is one of the most versatile and sought-after artists today. As a soloist, conductor, and artistic director, he performs repertoire spanning from early music to contemporary, playing on period and modern instruments.

2024/25 highlights include debuts with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Pintscher), Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen (Adès) and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Emelyanychev), as well as returns to Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Gardner), Konzerthausorchester Berlin (Mallwitz), Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Adès), WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln (Schwartz), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Philharmonia Orchestra (Järvi), Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lintu), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (Martín) and Hong Kong Sinfonietta (Poppen), among others. Altstaedt collaborates with Münchener Kammerorchester several times throughout the season as Artist in Focus, and makes his debut at the Grand Teton Music Festival (Runnicles) in Summer 2025.

Since his highly acclaimed debut with Wiener Philharmoniker and Gustavo Dudamel at the Lucerne Festival, notable residencies and collaborations include Budapest Festival Orchestra (Fischer), SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg (Currentzis), Helsinki Festival (Salonen), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Ticciati), Bamberger Symphoniker (Dausgaard), Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra (Shani), Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (Herreweghe), London Philharmonic Orchestra (Gardner), Münchner Philharmoniker (Urbański), European Union Youth Orchestra (Noseda and V Petrenko), all the BBC orchestras (including with Storgårds), Orchestre National de France (Măcelaru), NHK and Yomiuri Nippon (Yamada) symphony orchestras, Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (Payare), NAC Orchestra, Ottawa (Shelley), Sydney and New Zealand symphony orchestras (Runnicles), and Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Altstaedt regularly performs on period instruments with ensembles such as Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini, B’Rock with René Jacobs, Orchestre des Champs-Elysées with Phillippe Herreweghe, and Arcangelo with Jonathan Cohen. As a conductor, he has forged close partnerships with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Münchener Kammerorchester, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Les Violons du Roy.

Joint appearances with composers such as Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann, Thomas Larcher, Fazıl Say and Sofia Gubaidulina consolidate his reputation as an outstanding interpreter of contemporary music. Wolfgang Rihm, Sebastian Fagerlund, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Marton Illés and Helena Winkelman have recently written concertos and other works for him. New concertos by Liza Lim and Malika Kishino as well as a new work for cello and choir by Raquel García-Tomás receive their premieres this season.

In 2012 Altstaedt succeeded Gidon Kremer as Artistic Director of the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, and from 2014 to 2021 he succeeded Ádám Fischer in this position at the Haydn Philharmonie at the Ésterházy Palace, touring with the orchestra to Japan and China in recent seasons. As a chamber musician, his partners include Janine Jansen, Vilde Frang, Pekka Kuusisto, Lawrence Power, Antoine Tamestit, Alexander Lonquich, Mao Fujita, Maxim Emelyanychev, Fazıl Say, Jean Rondeau, Thomas Dunford, Quatuor Ébène and Belcea Quartet. He performs at both Salzburg Mozart and Summer festivals, Verbier Festival, BBC Proms, Lucerne Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Prague Spring Festival and Musikfest Bremen.

His most recent recording for his Lockenhaus Festival garnered the BBC Music Magazine 2020 Chamber Award and Gramophone Classical Music Award 2020. He received the BBC Music Magazine Concerto Award 2017 for his recording of CPE Bach Concertos on Hyperion with Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen and the AFAS Edison Klassiek 2017 for his recital recording with Fazıl Say on Warner Classics. Altstaedt is a recipient of the Credit Suisse Award in 2010, Beethovenring Bonn 2015, Musikpreis der Stadt Duisburg 2018 and was a 2010-12 BBC New Generation Artist.

HarrisonParrott represents Nicolas Altstaedt for worldwide general management.

Nicolas Altstaedt - Courante uit Bach's ‘Vijfde suite’ - Concertgebouw Sessions © Het Concertgebouw

Bloch Schelomo Nicolas Altstaedt, Lahav Shani © Nicolas Altstaedt

Nicolas Altstaedt with Arcangelo: Haydn cello concerto No.1, H. 7b, 3rd movement: Allegro molto © Arcangelo

Fazil Say and Nicolas Altstaedt record 'Four Cities: Ankara' Cello Sonata © Warner Classics

Lutosławski Cello Concerto Nicolas Altstaedt, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dima Slobodeniouk © Nicolas Altstaedt

Schumann: Cello Concerto - Nicolas Altstaedt © AVROTROS Klassiek

Nicolas Altstaedt | Esa-Pekka Salonen: Violoncellokonzert | SWR Symphonieorchester © SWR Classic

Nicolas Altstaedt | DUTILLEUX Tout un monde lointain | Fabien Gabel © Detroit Symphony Orchestra

Nicolas Altstaedt | William Walton: Violoncellokonzert | SWR Symphonieorchester © SWR Classic

“Messiaen’s sweeping and mystical “Quartet for the End of Time,” … was given one of the finest readings I’ve heard … the pianist Francesco Piemontesi and the cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, who played together with hypnotic and alluring restraint in the fifth movement … this account was masterly and meditatively played.”

(The New York Times, July 2021)

“In this beautifully recorded release, the interpretations [of Beethoven’s Sonatas] by Altstaedt and Lonquich bristle with boldness, exploiting the revolutionary aspects of the music with relish. The performances are vivid and dramatic… Quite simply, the range of timbre, dynamics, and characterisation in these performances is phenomenal.”

(The Strad, October 2020)

“Nicolas Altstaedt’s take on Beethoven’s music for cello and piano is magical, proud, and glorious.”

(Strings Magazine, July 2020)

“Altstaedt’s crisp, penetrating sound was arresting in the first movement of Debussy’s 1915 Cello Sonata … yet he brought a deftness of touch that lent his lines a graceful lyricism over the march of Madžar’s piano.”

(Limelight Magazine, Angus McPherson, September 2017, 4.5 stars)

“Nicolas Altstaedt is one of that elite group: here you would think he was a Baroque full-timer, his approach is so indefinably delicate, the phrasing of CPE Bach’s seductive lines limpid, the recitative hyper-articulate. The tawny warmth of his tone is perfectly attuned to the composer’s sound world; slow movements have an inward grace, while the fast are marked by vivid detail and natural effervescence.”

(Classical Music, August 2017)

“Altstaedt’s feathery touches and hushed wisps that opened the concert were delicately placed and continued throughout these two [Beethoven Op.5 sonatas], with deftness in the upper registers alternating with forceful pounding of both cello and piano in the lower, and both finales taken at a healthy brisk pace with authority and plenty of rippling fluidity.”

(Bachtrack, Mark Thomas, June 2017)

“Nicolas Altstaedt is an ideal protagonist; no sentimental phrasing impedes the music’s dynamic thrust and the angry opening of [CPE Bach’s] A‑minor Concerto is gripping… Emotions are at their darkest in the Finale – displayed dramatically by Altstaedt whose presentation of the rapid staccato passages involves virtuosic skill.”

(Classical Source, Antony Hodgson, Nov 2016, 5 stars)

“Muscular playing, klezmerish swing. The two composers’ cello concertos make an impressive vehicle for rising cellist Nicolas Altstaedt”

(The Guardian April 2016)

“The compelling French-German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt gave a performance of this compact 10-minute piece that thoroughly conveyed its audacious, even radical elements. This was his New York recital debut. It’s about time.”

(New York Times, Anthony Tommasini, February 2016)

“Altstaedt displayed a consistently gorgeous tone and warmth of phrasing, particularly effective in the ghostly high line in the second movement [of Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain]”

(Bachtrack, Simon Holden, April 2015)

“An absolute revelation. Nicolas Altstaedt, one of the cello realm’s most brilliant young princes.”

(Huffington Post)