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Ralph Kirshbaum
Ong Teng Cheong Visiting Professor in Music 2007/2008
The distinguished career of Texas-born cellist Ralph Kirshbaum encompasses the worlds of solo performance, chamber music and recording and clearly places him in "the highest echelon of today's cellists." (Los Angeles Times). Over the years, Ralph Kirshbaum has appeared with most of the world's great orchestras and conductors. These have included Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Mehta), Cleveland Orchestra (Dohnanyi), San Francisco Symphony (Blomstedt), Boston Symphony (Previn), Pittsburg Symphony (Lutoslawski), London Symphony (Sir Colin Davis), Philharmonia (Slatkin), BBC Symphony (Andrew Davis), the Orchestre de Paris (Bychkov) and most recently, the Israel Philharmonic (Masur), together with major orchestras in Holland, Germany, Spain, Scandinavia and the Far East in repertoire ranging from Haydn and Dvorak to Prokofiev and Lutoslawski. Ralph Kirshbaum's many recordings have also included the 1983 Gramophone Magazine "Record of the Year" world premiere recording of Tippett's Triple Concerto for Philips, the Elgar and Walton Concertos for Chandos, the Ravel, Shostakovich and Brahms Trios for EMI and the Barber Concerto and Sonata for EMI/Virgin Classics. Also noteworthy is his recording of the Brahms Double and Beethoven Triple Concertos for BMG Classics with Pinchas Zukerman, John Browning and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Of his recording of the Walton Concerto, the composer wrote "It is most heartening to hear a performance in which everything is just right - it is excellent and moving". In 2006, he released his recording of the Shostakovich and Prokofiev Sonatas with pianist Peter Jablonski, with whom he collaborated in a recent New York recital at the Frick Musuem. Ralph Kirshbaum is the International Chair of Cello at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester and gives annual master classes at the International Musician's Seminar in Prussia Cove, the London Masterclasses and throughout the world. He has served on the US President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities for the past four years. The rare Montagnana Cello that Ralph Kirshbaum plays once belonged to the nineteenth century virtuoso, Piatti. Though resident in London with his wife and son, Ralph Kirshbaum remains a US citizen with a great love of American football, tennis and Texan food. |
