Ralph Kirshbaum (USA)

The distinguished career of Texas-born cellist Ralph Kirshbaum encompasses the worlds of solo performance, chamber music, recording and pedagogy and places him in the highest echelon of today’s cellists. He has appeared with many of the world’s great orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra; the Boston, Chicago, San Francisco Symphony Orchestras; and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony, Philharmonia, Zurich Tonhalle, Orchestre de Paris and Israel Philharmonic. He has collaborated with many of the great conductors of the time including Christoph von Dohnányi, Sir Colin Davis, James Levine, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Sir Antonio Pappano, Sir André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, and Sir Georg Solti. In 2008, Kirshbaum accepted the Gregor Piatigorsky Chair in Violoncello at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, where he currently serves as Chair of the Strings Department. In 2012, he inaugurated the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in Los Angeles which he returns to this season in March 2020. With an extensive discography which includes recordings on the EMI/Virgin Classics, Hyperion, Onyx Classics, and Virgin Classics labels among others, Kirshbaum is noted for his recordings of the Bach Cello Suites, the complete cello sonatas and variations of Beethoven with Shai Wosner and the Brahms Double and Beethoven Triple Concertos with Pinchas Zukerman and John Browning.