Cello

Grammy nominated conductor, cellist and conductor Dmitry Yablonksy was born in Moscow into a musical family. He began playing the cello when he was 5 years old and was accepted to the Central Music School for gifted children. At the age of 9 he gave his orchestral debut playing Haydn’s cello concerto.

Since then, his career had taken him to the most important stages in the world, such as the Carnegie Hall, La Scala, Moscow Great Hall, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall, Taiwan National Hall, Teatre Mogador, Cite de la Musique, Louvre, among others.

He regularly plays with important artists as Boris Berezovsky, Vadim Repin, Shlomo Mintz, Itamar Golan, Yuri Bashmet, and has collaborated with artists as Monserrat Caballé, Roberto Alagna, Olga Borodina, ... He played Mº Penderecki’s Cello concerto with the composer at the podium.

“A mesmerizing, heroic soloist” (The Strad), Alexander Ramm is one of the most sought-after cellists of his generation. Having emerged on the international stage as the silver medalist of the 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition, he has recently attracted much attention and critical praise with his recording of Benjamin Britten’s Cello Suites, which was made with titanium pins in his left elbow following a freak accident. Enthusiastic comparisons to Rostropovich (The Strad, Pizzicato.lu) and the Listeners’ Choice award of The Violoncello Foundation have placed this album among the most acclaimed recordings of cello repertoire. 

Alexander’s regular collaborations with Vladimir Jurowski, Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Spivakov, Mikhail Jurowski, Antoni Wit, Alexander Sladkovsky and other prominent artistic partners have taken him to Philharmonie de Paris, London’s Cadogan Hall as well as to Linz’s Brucknerhaus, Amsterdam’s  Concertgebouw, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, Tokyo’s Nikkei Hall and to many of the most prestigious stages in the UK, Germany, Lithuania, Sweden, Austria, Finland, South Africa, Japan, France and Russia, including Mariinsky Theatre and Tchaikovsky Concert Hall.

Gary Hoffman is one of the outstanding cellists of our time, combining instrumental mastery, great beauty of sound, and a poetic sensibility in his distinctive and memorable performances. Mr. Hoffman gained international renown upon his victory as the first North American to win the Rostropovich International Competition in Paris in 1986.

A frequent soloist with the world's most noted orchestras, he has appeared with the Chicago, London, Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, Baltimore and National symphony orchestras as well as the English, Moscow and Los Angeles chamber orchestras, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Netherlands and Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra for the Blossom Festival and Philadelphia Orchestra, among many others. Mr. Hoffman collaborates regularly with such celebrated conductors as André Prévin, Charles Dutoit, Mstislav Rostropovich, Pinchas Zuckerman, Andrew Davis, Herbert Blomstedt, Kent Nagano, Jésus Lopez-Cobos and James Levine…

Gary Hoffman performs on major recital and chamber music series throughout the world, as well as in such prestigious festivals as Ravinia, Marlboro, Aspen, Bath, Evian, Helsinki, Verbier, Mostly Mozart, Schleswig-Holstein, Stresa... He is a frequent guest of string quartets including Emerson, Tokyo, Borromeo, Brentano, and Ysaye.