Artists

Biography:

Lauded for ‘delicate yet virtuosic’ playing (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘seamless subtleties of tone colour’ with ‘plenty of edge’ (The Strad), Swiss-French-German cellist Christoph Croisé is quickly building an international reputation as one of the most captivating young concert soloists to emerge in recent years.

Born in 1993, he made his New York debut at the age of 17 at Carnegie Hall, where he has performed on several occasions since. Today, his busy international performing schedule includes regular appearances in many of the world’s renowned concert halls, among them the Tonhalle Zurich, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Munich’s Residenz, the Capella and the Philharmonia of St Petersburg, and the Azerbaijan State Philharmonic Hall in Baku. He has given a number of live radio and television concerts, for broadcasters Bavarian Radio, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, WQXR, BBC, RTS, RSI, SRF and WMFT, among others.

As a soloist, Croisé has appeared under the batons of conductors such as Michael Sanderling, Mario Venzago, Douglas Boyd, Laurent Gendre, Kevin Griffiths, Ayyub Guliyev, Alf Årdal, Maurizio Dones, Giovanni Bria and Dimitris Botinis, with various orchestras including Musikkollegium Winterthur, St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, Bern Symphony Orchestra, Azerbaijan State Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Switzerland, Munich Radio Orchestra, Camerata Zurich, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, Sichuan Symphony Orchestra, St Petersburg State Capella Symphony Orchestra, Collegium Musicum Basel,İ ̇Izmir State Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Mulhouse, Albanian Radio Television Symphony Orchestra, Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, Orquesta Sinfónica de Michoacán, Harbin Symphony Orchestra and South Czech Philharmonic.

He is a regular guest at prestigious festivals including the Musical Olympus Festival in St Petersburg, New York and Baku, the Lucerne Festival, Radio France Festival Montpellier, Davos Festival – Young Artists in Concert, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Salzkammergut Festwochen Gmunden, Schwarzwald Musikfestival, Klosters Music Festival, Festival de Sully, Belfast International Arts Festival, Emilia Romagna Festival and Festival International de Musique de Wissembourg.

As a chamber musician he has performed with Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Mayuko Kamio, Bartek Nizioł, Isabelle van Keulen, Andrey Baranov, Sergey Ostrovsky, Kirill Troussov, Alexander Zemtsov, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Marie Chilemme, Christoffer Sundqvist, Anna Fedorova, Oliver Schnyder, Oxana Shevchenko, Nikita Mndoyants, Lorenzo Soulès and Alexander Panfilov.

Croisé has taken first prize in a number of competitions, among them the Schoenfeld International String Competition (Harbin, 2016), the 2nd Berliner International Music Competition 2018 (First Grand Prize), the Manhattan International Music Competition (2016), the ‘Salieri-Zinetti’ International Chamber Music Competition (Verona, 2016), the International Johannes Brahms Competition (2015), the International ‘IBLA Grand Prize’ Competition (Sicily, 2010), the International ‘Petar Konjovicˇ’ Competition (Belgrade, 2009) and the Migros-Kulturprozent (Zurich, 2015 and 2016), as well as 3rd Prize at the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition (Morelia, Mexico, 2016) and Gold Medal with honours at the first Berliner International Music Competition (2017). In 2017 he was awarded the Swiss Ambassador’s Award, and the following year received the ‘Prix Jeune soliste 2019 des Médias francophone publics’.

His debut album with Oxana Shevchenko was released in May 2015 on Quartz Classics, his second album, Summer Night, including Othmar Schoeck’s cello concerto, was released in February 2018 on GENUIN classics, and his third album (Haydn, Vivaldi Cello Concertos) was released in March 2019 on AVIE Records, winning the Supersonic Award from Pizzicato Magazine and the ‘Clef d’or’ for the best concerto album of 2019 from ResMusica Magazine. His fourth release and second on AVIE, The Russian Album with pianist Alexander Panfilov, was released in November 2019.

Croisé is often involved in baroque projects as a complement to modern performance. He has worked extensively in the field, performing as soloist with Il Pomo d’Oro and working with Maurice Steger and Nicolas Altstaedt. In 2020 and 2021 he released a CD and video of the complete set of Viola da Gamba sonatas and six Cello Suites by J.S. Bach, performing on a 1720 Guarneri ‘Filius Andrea’ baroque cello.

In addition to performing, he is passionate about helping young cellists develop as musicians and has given international masterclasses in prestigious venues such as the St Petersburg Conservatory, the “Festival of young European soloists” of Venezuela’s El Sistema and the “Masterclass de Música“ in Granada/Spain.

Croisé is artistic director of the Niederlenzer Musiktage, a classical and electronic music festival taking place every year at the end of May in Switzerland.

Croisé began playing the cello at the age of seven under the tutelage of Katharina Kühne. Since 2007, he has been studying with Alexander Neustroev and, as of 2013, with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt at the Berlin University of the Arts. He has additionally benefited from major artistic advice from Steven Isserlis, Michael Sanderling, David Geringas, Walter Grimmer and Frans Helmerson.

Croisé plays a rare Italian master cello, crafted in 1680. He is very thankful for the multiple scholarships granted to him in recent years by the Lyra Foundation.