Portrait Claudio Bohórquez

Claudio Bohórquez

Violoncello
© P. Adamik

The German-born cellist of Peruvian-Uruguayan descent is one of the most sought-after musicians in his field. As a student of Boris Pergamenschikow, Claudio Bohórquez achieved success at an early age at international competitions such as the Tschaikovsky Youth Competition in Moscow or the Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris. He also won 1st prize at the Geneva International Music Competition at a very young age in 1995, which marked the beginning of his career as a soloist. This culminated in 2000 with an award at the inaugural Kronberg Academy International Pablo Casals Competition: in addition to the Grand Prix and the special prize for the best chamber music interpretation, Claudio Bohórquez received Pablo Casals' Goffriller cello on loan for two years from Marta Casals Istomin. Meanwhile he has become a teacher himself: from 2011 to 2016 he was professor at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart, in September 2016 he was appointed to the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin, where he has been a guest professor since 2003.

Among others, Claudio Bohórquez has performed with almost all German radio orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Collegium Musicum Basel, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. In Japan, he performs with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In the US, Claudio Bohórquez recently gave concerts with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Renowned conductors Claudio Bohórquez has worked with include Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Manfred Honeck, Sir Neville Marriner, Eiji Oue, Krzysztof Penderecki, Leonard Slatkin, Tugan Sokhiev, Lothar Zagrosek and David Zinman.

Claudio Bohórquez is a guest at numerous festivals. Among them are the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, the City of London Festival, the Penderecki Festival in Warsaw and the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival. Appearances in the United States have included performances at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen Festival as well as the Hollywood Bowl. He participated in the chamber music festival Lockenhaus in Austria and at Gidon Kremer's festival "Les Musiques" in Basel. As a passionate chamber musician, he has performed together with Jörg Widmann in Bilbao/Madrid, and with Viviane Hagner and Jonathan Gilad at the Beethoven Marathon at Konzerthaus Berlin. He can be heard regularly in the string trio with Daishin Kashimoto and Amihai Grosz.

Next to his debut at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the past seasons have led the artist to many festivals, including: the Rheingau Music Festival with the Columbian Youth Philharmonic under Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the Dresden Music Festival or the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. In the 2021/22 season, Claudio Bohórquez will be a guest at the Zermatt Music Festival on several occasions, including as soloist to the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations. With the Konzerthausorchester Berlin he returns to the Konzerthaus Berlin with program by Matthias Pintscher. Performances with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Andreas Delfs bring him back to the United States. Alongside this there are several chamber music concerts planned, including a piano trio together with Éric Le Sage and Daishin Kashimoto at the Opera de Lille.

In addition to numerous CD recordings, radio recordings and television appearances Claudio Bohórquez worked as an interpreter for the soundtrack of Paul Englishby to the film "Ten Minutes Older - The Cello", which was shown in theaters worldwide. Together with the painter Klaus-Peter Kirchner, Claudio Bohórquez developed the installation project "Raum für Pablo Casals" in homage to this great cellist. He was part of the ECHO-winning album "Four Seasons" (2017) of Daniel Hope, released by Deutsche Grammophon. Together with pianist and duo partner Péter Nagy, Claudio Bohórquez recorded a CD of Johannes Brahms' sonatas for BerlinClassics (2018), followed by a CD of works including Schumann's famous "Dichterliebe" in the version for cello and piano (2019). Earlier this year, a Piazzolla album was released by BerlinClassics as well, on which Claudio Bohórquez recorded works of Piazzolla's musical legacy together with his brother Oscar Bohórquez and Piazzolla's contemporary and ensemble colleague Gustavo Beytelmann (2021).

Since the season 2017/18 Claudio Bohórquez has been Artistic Director of the Festival Winnenden.

Claudio Bohórquez plays a G. B. Rogeri violoncello generously made available to him by the Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg.



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  • „"Rasch und mit Feuer", dieser Schlusssatz aus den Fantasiestücken op. 73 zeigt exemplarisch, wie gut sich die beiden Musiker verstehen – bei einer höchst anspruchsvollen Kammermusik, mit virtuosen Dialogen und lyrisch aufeinander bezogenen Wendungen. Insgesamt gelingt den beiden Musikern eines der klangschönsten Schumann-Alben des Jahres 2019.“
    rbbKultur
    Hans Ackermann, Robert Schumann: "Poetica", in rbbKultur, 31.10.2019
  • „Brahms‘ favorisiertes Instrument war das Cello. Dass man dieser Selbstaussage durchaus Glauben schenken kann, ist auf dieser Einspielung mehr als souverän dokumentiert. Feinfühlig, leidenschaftlich und mit der Brahms-eigenen Ernsthaftigkeit interpretieren Bohórquez und Nagy die so gegensätzlichen Sonaten, bestechen durch ein ausgewogenes Zusammenspiel und arbeiten die vielschichtigen Facetten dieser Repertoire-Meilensteine selbstbewusst heraus. Gleichwohl treffen beide auch den heiteren Charakter der enthaltenen Bearbeitungen ausgewählter Ungarischer Tänze.“
    Concerti
    JB, „Brahms: Cellosonaten e-Moll op. 38 & F-Dur op. 99“, in Concerti, September 2018



Elisabeth Ehlers

Elisabeth Ehlers

Director, General Management
e-mail
+49 89 44488790
Felicitas Wittekindt

Felicitas Wittekindt

e-mail
Associate Artist Manager
+49 89 444887911