Maximilian Hornung
Cello
Maximilian Hornung has established himself as one of the leading cellists in recent years. His playing is characterized by great naturalness, paired with technical mastery and an enormously versatile, powerful and unique tone, which he always puts at the service of the music. His ability to connect with the audience on a deeply emotional level and his charismatic presence make him stand out. In addition to the much-performed core repertoire such as Dvorak, Elgar and Schumann, he also regularly devotes himself with great curiosity to the lesser-known cello masterpieces.
As a soloist, he has performed with such renowned orchestras as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre National de France, the Bayerisches Staatsorchester, the Czech Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under conductors such as Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézét-Séguin, Paavo Järvi, Marie Jacquot, Mariss Jansons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Zinman, Pablo Heras-Casado, Semyon Bychkov, Bernard Haitink, Manfred Honeck, Antonello Manacorda, John Storgårds Michael Francis, Krzysztof Urbański and Robin Ticciati. His chamber music partners include Anne-Sophie Mutter, Vilde Frang, Denis Kozukhin, Julia Fischer, Antje Weithaas, Hélène Grimaud, Daniil Trifonov, Hisako Kawamura, Christian Tetzlaff, Lisa Batiashvili, François Leleux, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman und Herbert Schuch. He has been invited to numerous festivals, including Schwetzingen, the Salzburg Festival, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheingau, Lucerne, Verbier, Lockenhaus, Ravinia and Hong Kong. He is a regular guest at venues such as the Berlin, Cologne and Essen Philharmonie, the Vienna Musikverein, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and London's Wigmore Hall. In recent years, he has also made a name for himself as a soloist and conductor and regularly conducts projects, most recently with the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana..
In the 2024/25 season, Maximilian Hornung will make his debuts with the Bergen and Tampere Philharmonic as well as the Essener Philharmoniker, will once again appear with the WDR Symphony Orchestra and will be artist-in-residence of the Munich Symphony Orchestra as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor in and around Munich. He continues to perform in play-conduct projects with the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra. His chamber music appearances include the Rheingau Music Festival, Incontri in Terra di Siena and the Chamber Music Festival Taipei, as well as with Vilde Frang and Denis Kozukhin at London's Wigmore Hall.
His versatile discography is impressive and includes solo concerts as well as recordings with prominent chamber musicians. He received the ECHO Klassik Prize for his first album (Sony 2011) – for which he was designated as Young Artist of the Year – as well as for his recording of Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Bamberg Symphony under the direction of Sebastian Tewinkel the following year (Sony 2012). Further recordings have included Richard Strauss’ major cello works with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink (Sony 2014) and Joseph Haydn’s cello concertos with the Kammerakademie Potsdam under Antonello Manacorda (Sony 2015). In 2017, Deutsche Grammophon released a highly acclaimed recording of Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Anne-Sophie Mutter and Daniil Trifonov, amongst others. Further recordings were released on Genuin, Linn Records, NEOS, Bridge Records, and CPO. In 2018, myrios classics released his recording of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2 and Sulkhan Tsintsadze’s Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Andris Poga.
Maximilian Hornung, born 1986 in Augsburg, began taking cello lessons at the age of eight. The teachers with whom he has studied most intensely are Eldar Issakadze, Thomas Grossenbacher, and David Geringas. As cellist of the Tecchler Trio, in which he played until 2011, he won the First Prize of the ARD Music Competition in 2007. At the age of only 23, he became first principal cellist of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and held this position until 2013. Maximilian Hornung has been supported and sponsored by his mentor Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Borletti-Buitoni Trust in London. Since the spring of 2022, he has been Artistic Director of the Traunsteiner Sommerkonzerte.
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra debut of cellist Maximilian Hornung on Friday night added another element of surprise to Strauss’ work [‘Don Quixote’]: His performance seemed to take stock of all this textured material and rise above it all, producing a breath with each statement. (...) Mr. Hornung’s clear-eyed interpretation capably sifted through Strauss’ dense musical material, his tone direct yet warm. Like an able guide navigating through an undiscovered forest, he commanded the pace of the work…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Hisako Kawamura
Piano
Born in Nishinomiya (Japan), Hisako Kawamura moved to Düsseldorf (Germany) with her family at the age of 5 where she started studying piano with Kyoko Sawano. She continued her studies with Małgorzata Bator-Schreiber in Göttingen who provided her with musical and artistic training, and Prof. Vladimir Krainev at the Hannover University of Music and Drama who nurtured the development of her artistic personality.
Kawamura's international concert career kick-started with First Prizes at the Concours Clara Haskil in Vevey, the A. Casagrande International Piano Competition in Terni, the G.B. Viotti International Music Competition in Vercelli and the European Chopin Competition in Darmstadt. She also had outstanding successes at renowned international piano competitions as a prizewinner at the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich, the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels.
In 2017, Kawamura performed Saint-Saënsʼ Second Concerto with NHK Symphony Orchestra under Paavo Järvi. Following the success of this concert, she was invited back to perform Akio Yashiro's Piano Concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Kazuki Yamada in 2019 and the Second Concerto by Rachmaninov under Fabio Luisi in 2022.
Kawamura has performed with orchestras including Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Wiener Symphoniker, Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Moscow, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductors Jiří Bělohlávek, Vladimir Fedosseyev, Junichi Hirokami, Jakub Hrůša, Eliahu Inbal, Paavo Järvi, Marek Janowski, Zoltán Kocsis, Alexander Lazarev, Mikhail Pletnev, Tatsuya Shimono, Yuri Temirkanov and Kazuki Yamada, among others.
As a soloist, Kawamura has participated in major music festivals such as Klavierfestival Ruhr (Germany), Mozartfest Augsburg (Germany), Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany), Klavierwoche Ernen (Switzerland), Festival Auvers-sur-Oise (France), the Chopin Festival Duszniki-Zdroj (Poland), East Neuk Music Festival (Scotland) and Spring Festival in Tokyo.
As an avid and sensitive chamber musician Kawamura performs regularly with cellists Clemens Hagen, Maximilian Hornung and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi. She also enjoys a dynamic partnership with the violinist Sarah Christian following the performances and German SWR broadcasts of the complete violin sonatas by Beethoven.
An enriching collaboration between Doric String Quartet was brought to light whilst performing at the prize winner’s concert of the Suntory Music Award in 2023.
Her first recording of Beethoven!s Piano Sonatas (her sixth with RCA Red Seal) was released in April 2019. This album, including the 'Pathétique' and 'Moonlight' sonatas, was the first volume of her on-going Beethoven piano sonata recording project and was followed by the second installment featuring the 'Waldstein' and 'Appassionata' sonatas in October 2019. Her previous albums with RCA Red Seal: 'Chopin: 24 Préludes & Polonaise-Fantasie', 'Rachmaninoff- Album', 'Chopin: Balladesʼ, 'Chopin: Sonata No. 3 and Schumann Humoreske' and ‘Notturno' were also critically acclaimed.
Kawamura!s recordings for other labels feature works by Mozart, Schubert and Prokofiev (DiscAuvers), works by Schubert and Schumann (audite), works by Scarlatti, Debussy and Franck (Edition Klavierfestival Ruhr), Schumann's Piano Quintet (Nippon Columbia), Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra under Junichi Hirokami (Kyoto Symphony Orchestra label), Mozart's Piano Concerto KV 467 with the Argovia Philharmonic under Douglas Bostock (Coviello Classics).
The soundtrack of the Japanese movie 'LISTEN TO THE UNIVERSE' (Japanese title 'Mitsubachi to Enrai') released by Sony Music, features Kawamura as a soloist performing for the lead character of the movie, Aya Eiden. Based on the novel of the same name by Riku Onda, the film tells a story of an international piano competition.
Kawamura has been awarded numerous scholarships from prestigious organisations such as the European Yamaha Foundation, Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and the Rohm Music Foundation.
In Japan, Kawamuraʼs musical activity has been recognised by the prestigious Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists of Music by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. She was also awarded three important music prizes in 2009: the Fresh Artist Music Prize from the Nippon Steel Corporation, the IDEMITSU Music Prize from Idemitsu Kosan and the Prize of the Chopin Society Japan. Kawamura received also the Iue-Culture and Art Prize from Iue Memorial Foundation and the Hotel Okura Music Prize.
In 2020, Kawamura received the 51.Suntory Music Award. Moreover she was acknowledged by the 12.CD Shop Award and the Music Penclub Japan Award both in the category Classic.
Committed to sharing her musical experience with the next generation of young musicians Kawamura holds a professorship at the Folkwang University of Arts in Essen (Germany) and teaches masterclasses at the Tokyo College of Music.