Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt

The Grand Prix at the Rostropovich Competition in Paris — from a jury Rostropovich chaired himself — came early in Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt's career, alongside first prize at the German Music Competition and awards at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the Leonard Rose Competition. Born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1971, he studied with David Geringas in Lübeck and Aldo Parisot at Juilliard, and belonged to Chamber Music Society Two at Lincoln Center from 2000 to 2002. He has played concertos with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Berlin Radio Symphony and the Baltimore and Tokyo symphonies; his Prokofiev, Schumann and Elgar recordings are on Sony Classical, and a Weber piano quartet won the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and a Diapason d'Or in 2013. Professor in Weimar since 2009 and at Kronberg Academy since 2017, he also founded and conducts the chamber orchestra Metamorphosen Berlin. He plays a Matteo Goffriller cello once owned by Hugo Becker. He plays in the duo Cello Duello with Jens Peter Maintz, and his teaching has extended to the music university in Berlin as well.