Nicolas Altstaedt

German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt works as a soloist, conductor and artistic director.

During the 2019/20 season he was artist in focus at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, and artist in residence with the SWR Symphony Orchestra. Other recent highlights include his debuts with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, as well as a tour with the B’Rock Orchestra and René Jacobs.

In addition, he gave the highly acclaimed Finnish premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto and was a spotlight artist at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. In the 2021/22 season he made his debuts with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Nacional de España and toured with the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and Philippe Herreweghe, and with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and Dmitri Slobodeniouk.

Nicolas Altstaedt gives regular performances with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre National de France, and all the BBC orchestras, working with conductors including Gustavo Dudamel, Roger Norrington, Lahav Shani, François-Xavier Roth and Robin Ticciati. As a conductor he has worked closely with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as well as with several other leading ensembles.

His work with composers such as Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Thomas Larcher, Fazıl Say and Sofia Gubaidulina has given him a reputation as an outstanding interpreter of contemporary music. Sebastian Fagerlund, Helena Winkelman and Fazıl Say have written concertos for him.

Nicolas Altstaedt’s chamber music partners include Janine Jansen, Vilde Frang, Pekka Kuusisto, Lawrence Power, Antoine Tamestit, Alexander Lonquich, Jean Rondeau and the Quatuor Ébène.

In 2012 he succeeded Gidon Kremer as artistic director of the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival and in 2014 took over the artistic directorship of the Haydn Philharmonie from Ádám Fischer.

Nicolas Altstaedt has won numerous prizes, among them the Beethoven-Ring in Bonn in 2015 and the City of Duisburg Music Prize in 2018. His recordings have been widely acclaimed.