Biography

Russian cellist Natalia Gutman received her early musical training from her grandfather and later from cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, as well as the late Sviatoslav Richter. Maestro Richter once expressed his admiration for Natalia Gutman saying: “... she is an incarnation of truthfulness in music.”

In 1967 Natalia Gutman won the Munich ARD Competition, launching her international career. Since then she has performed on all continents with orchestras such as Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, Munich and St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam and many more. Festival appearances include the Salzburg Summer Festival and the Berliner and Wiener Festwochen. Wolfgang Sawallisch, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Bernhard Haitink, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Yuri Temirkanov, Sergiu Celibidache, Mstislav Rostropovich and Kurt Masur are among the many conductors who favor Natalia Gutman.

Another major interest of Natalia Gutman is chamber music. Her regular musical partners have included Martha Argerich and Elisso Virsaladze, Yuri Bashmet, Alexei Lubimov, Sviatoslav Richter and her late husband, violinist Oleg Kagan. She has premiered many contemporary works; in that regard, Alfred Schnittke dedicated a sonata and his first Cello Concerto to her. The complete Bach solo suites have been presented by Ms. Gutman in Moscow, Berlin, Munich, Madrid, Barcelona and other places around the world.

Today, Ms. Gutman performs all over the world, and her U.S. appearances in 2005 included a concerto with the San Francisco Symphony, as well as recitals and concerts in California, Baltimore, and Boston. In 2006 Natalia Gutman, in dedication to Robert Schumann, performed his cello concerto in Milan, Valencia, Cologne, London, Taipei and Florence. Also in 2006, one of the Shostakovich concertos was scheduled for Caracas, Tel Aviv, Monte Carlo, Warsaw, Athens, Vienna, the Netherlands and France. In Paris with the Orchestra Philharmonique she has performed the Lutoslawski concerto and in Lille the Dutilleux concerto.

The year 2007 started in Sevilla, where the Ms. Gutman again performed the Schumann concerto with Claudio Abbado and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra at the festival Iberoamericano. The season will again bring visits to the U.S., Taiwan, South America and many European capitals as well as several chamber music tours with Elisso Virzaladze (Spain, Belgium, Italy and Germany); in Trio with Kolja Blacher and Elisso Virzaladze (Spain, Luxembourg and Germany); as well as a quintet with the Borodin Quartet in Italy.

She has recorded the Shostakovich Concertos No. 1 and 2 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Yuri Temirkanov for RCA. Then followed a recording contract with EMI for the Dvorak Cello Concerto and other works with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. 1992 saw the release of the Schumann and Schnittke Cello Concertos with the London Philharmonic conducted by Kurt Masur. Natalia Gutman also frequently records for Live Classics.

Being dedicated to young musicians Natalia Gutman gives masterclasses worldwide – she has been a professor for many years at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart and still teaches in Moscow. At the beginning of July, Natalia Gutman invites internationally renowned artists, to the International Musikfest am Tegernsee, a chamber music festival she founded in 1990 with Oleg Kagan and dedicated it to him after his death.

In May 2005 German Federal President Horst Köhler bestowed on Natalia Gutman the highest German decoration, “Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse” and in 2006 she was nominated to become a “fellow of the Royal College of Music” in London. Natalia Gutman performs on a “Guarneri del Gesu” Cello, the masters work from Cremona dating back to the year 1731 (being a generous loan to Ms. Gutman by “Seacross Management Ltd. Strings Unlimited”).

January 2007
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