Jury
David Geringas
The cellist and conductor David Geringas, born in Vilnius, Lithuania, ranks amongst today’s musical elite. An unusually broad repertoire, ranging from the earliest Baroque to contemporary music, testifies to the artist’s versatility and curiosity. A pupil of Rostropovich and winner of the First Prize and the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition (1970), he can now look back on a career spanning several decades. David Geringas has performed worldwide with many leading orchestras and alongside the greatest conductors of our time. His discography, comprising nearly 100 CDs, features numerous recordings that have been honoured with prestigious music awards.
The conductor David Geringas is a regular presence on concert stages both at home and abroad, where he is frequently seen in the dual role of cellist and conductor. In addition to the major music centres of Western and Eastern Europe, invitations also take him to Asia and the USA.
He made his opera debut in 2010 with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in Klaipėda, Lithuania.
David Geringas was a professor at the conservatoires in Hamburg (1977 to 1986), Lübeck (1980 to 2000) and at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin (2000 to 2009). For many decades, he led a cello class celebrated worldwide, from which cello stars such as Gustav Rivinius, Jens Peter Maintz, Maximilian Hornung and Sol Gabetta, amongst others, have emerged.
David Geringas was awarded the Cross of Merit, 1st Class, of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of his overall achievements as a musician and ambassador for Germany as a cultural nation on the international music scene and throughout the world.
Professor David Geringas teaches exclusively at the Blackmore International Music Academy in Berlin.
Natalie Clein
The British cellist Natalie Clein has built an impressive career and performs regularly in renowned concert halls and with orchestras worldwide. In 2021, she was awarded an OBE for her services to music.
She regularly releases recordings on the Hyperion label and has already won several awards for her previous recordings.
Natalie Clein is regularly invited to perform with leading orchestras worldwide, including the Philharmonia London, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Montréal Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires. She has worked with renowned conductors such as Sir Mark Elder, Sir Roger Norrington, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Leonard Slatkin, Heinrich Schiff and Daniel Harding.
As a chamber musician, she frequently performs with artists such as Marianna Shirinyan, Cedric Pescia, Christian Ihle Hadland, Einav Yarden, Nurit Stark and Anthony Marwood.
Natalie Clein is the artistic director of the Purbeck International Chamber Music Festival in Dorset and has curated concert series for BBC Radio 3 and King’s Place.
A passionate educator, she has been Professor of Cello at the Rostock University of Music and Drama in Germany since 2019. She is also a visiting professor of cello at the Royal College of Music in London and teaches worldwide in masterclasses, as well as serving as a jury member at events including the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and the ARD Music Competition in Munich.
She studied with Heinrich Schiff in Vienna and plays the ‘Simpson’ Guadagnini cello, made in 1777.
Marc Coppey
A protégé of Lord Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich, Coppey first shot to international acclaim at the age of 18, winning First Prize and ‘Prize for the Best Bach Performance’ at the prestigious Leipzig Bach Competition (1988). Soon thereafter, he made major debuts in Paris and Moscow in collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin and Victoria Postnikova, and performed at the Evian Festival by personal invitation of Mstislav Rostropovich. Since then, Coppey has carved out an impressive solo career to date, working regularly with many of the world’s finest orchestras and conductors – including, amongst others, Alain Altinoglu, Lionel Bringuier, Lawrence Foster, Alan Gilbert, Kirill Karabits, Emmanuel Krivine, John Nelson, Pascal Rophé, Yan Pascal Tortelier, and Yutaka Sado.
The breadth of Coppey’s repertoire is testament to his profound musical curiosity: alongside mainstream cello literature, he is a champion of lesserknown and contemporary works.
Recent and forthcoming highlights include performing as soloist with Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Lio Kuokman, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France/Kazushi Ono, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg/John Nelson, and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Lawrence Foster. As conductor, Coppey collaborates with the Deutsche Kammerakademie and the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, amongst other leading ensembles, and serves as Music Director of the Zagreb Soloists (2011-present).
Coppey is a much acclaimed recording artist, working exclusively with the audite classics label.
Passionate about inspiring future generations of musicians, Coppey is a Professor at the Conservatore National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, and is regularly invited to give masterclasses across Europe, Asia, and both North & South America. Since October 2020, he is the Artistic Director of the Saline Royale Academy d’Arc-et-Senans: a state-of-the-art new music education facility in France.
Marc Coppey performs on a cello by Matteo Gofriller (Venice, 1711), known as the ‘Van Wilgenburg’, and resides in Paris.
Pieter Wispelwey
Pieter Wispelwey enjoys chamber music collaborations and regular duo partners include pianists Cédric Tiberghien and Alasdair Beatson and he appears as a guest artist with a number of string quartets including the Australian String Quartet.
Wispelwey’s career spans five continents and he has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Boston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Tokyo Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, Danish National Radio Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra and Camerata Salzburg. Conductor collaborations include Ivan Fischer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Kent Nagano, Sir Neville Marriner, Philippe Herreweghe, Vladimir Jurowski, Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman and Sir Roger Norrington.
With regular recital appearances in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Milan, Buenos Aires, Sydney, Los Angeles and New York, Wispelwey has established a reputation as one of the most charismatic recitalists on the circuit
In 2012 Wispelwey celebrated his 50th birthday by embarking on a project showcasing the Bach Cello Suites. He recorded the complete Suites for the third time, released on the label Evil Penguin Classics. A major strand of his recital performances is his performances of the complete suites during the course of one evening, an accomplishment that has attracted major critical acclaim throughout Europe and the US.
Pieter Wispelwey’s impressive discography of over 20 albums has attracted major international awards. His most recent concerto release features the C.P.E. Bach’s Cello Concerto in A major with the Musikkollegium Winterthur.
Born in Haarlem, The Netherlands, Wispelwey’ studied with Dicky Boeke and Anner Bylsma in Amsterdam and later with Paul Katz in the USA and William Pleeth in the UK.
Pieter Wispelwey plays on a 1760 Giovanni Battista Guadagnini cello and a 1710 Rombouts baroque cello.
Tatjana Vassiljeva
Tatjana Vassiljeva was born in Novosibirsk (Russia) and began studying the cello at the age of six with Eugenij Nilov at the Special Music School. After winning second prize at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich in 1994, she moved there to study at the University of Music under Walter Nothas. After graduating with distinction, Tatjana Vassiljeva went on to the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin to complete her training with David Geringas.
She performs regularly with leading orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de Paris, the Munich Philharmonic, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the St Petersburg Philharmonic and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In doing so, she has collaborated with many outstanding conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Herbert Blomstedt, Yuri Temirkanov, Valery Gergiev, David Zinman, Daniele Gatti, Tugan Sokhiev, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Mikhail Jurowski, Sakari Oramo and Christoph Eschenbach.
Highlights of her collaboration with Mstislav Rostropovich included a tour of Spain, concerts in Germany and the Netherlands, and a series of concerts to mark the anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich with the Orchestre de Paris in October 2006. The following year, Tatjana Vassiljeva performed at the memorial concert for the great maestro.
Her first CD, featuring chamber music by Debussy, Dutilleux, Britten and Stravinsky, was released by Naxos. This was followed by a further three recordings on the Accord/Universal label. Her solo CD, featuring works by contemporary composers (Shchedrin, Dutilleux, Saariaho, Schnittke, Stroppa and Penderecki), was awarded the Diapason d’Or of the Year. This was followed by another recording featuring works by Franck, Schubert and Stravinsky.
Since 2014, Tatjana Vassiljeva has been Principal Cellist with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.