"Johannes Goritzki"

Johannes Goritzki hails from T�bingen, Germany, where he began taking piano lessons at the age of five - only six years later he was winner of the "Deutscher Tonk�nstlerverband" competition. He took up the cello when he was seven and developed with such promise that it became clear, after completing his schooling, that he had only one great passion: to persue a life as a professional musician.
Johannes Goritzki studied with Atis Teichmanis at Freiburg's Musikhochschule before making the acquaintance of three legendary cellists who have long since taken their place in the pantheon of musical greats: Gaspar Cassad�, Andr� Navarra and Pablo Casals. It was Cassad�, in particular, who introduced Goritzki to the "sound of the cello". As teacher and father-figure alike, it was he who turned the instrumentalist Goritzki into a musician.
Notwithstanding his demanding agenda as a conductor, the cellist Johannes Goritzki has never laid the bow aside. One of the highlights of his extensive discography is Othmar Schoeck's cello concerto, a recording which filled a gap in the cello repertoire, which first became apparent upon the release of this brilliant production. This CD was awarded the "Grand Prix du Disque � Discobole de L�Europe."
Parallel to his traditional cello repertoire of concertos and solo works (Bach, Reger, Kodaly, Veress etc.) Johannes Goritzki enjoys a collaboration with the pianist Pavel Gililov, in which they explore the many delights of chamber music. Johannes Goritzki has conducted in both the Philharmonie and Schauspielhaus in Berlin, The Philharmonie in Cologne, the Gasteig in Munich, the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the D�sseldorf Tonhalle. He conducted the gala performance for the reopening of the Teatro Felice in Genoa and has directed orchestras in Rome's Santa Cecilia and Paris' Salle Gaveau.
He interpreted Graun's "Montezuma" and Mozart's "Cos� fan tutte" at the Bellas Artes Opera House in Mexico City, and has appeared as guest conductor at the Berlin Festwochen, Bucharest's Enescu Festival, Finland's Kuhmo Festival and, at the request of Gidon Kremer, in Lockenhaus. Musicians such as Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Nikita Magaloff, Radu Lupu, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Aur�le Nicolet, Boris Pergamenschikov, Natalia Gutmann, Heinrich Schiff, Fran�ois Ren� Duchable, Thomas Quasthoff und Hildegard Behrens have performed under Goritzki�s baton, encompassing repertoire ranging from Baroque to the Avant-garde.