Alexander Wollheim

Biography

From early childhood on, Greco-German cellist Alexander Wollheim (*22.7.2000 in Berlin) has shown great interest and joy in making and composing music. At the age of 4, he started his musical education, which at the time encompassed piano and violin lessons as well as an all-around training in voice and theory at the Berlin State and Cathedral Choir. Three years later, he started studying the cello with Wayne Foster-Smith, who remained his main teacher for 10 years.

From October 2017, Alexander is an undergraduate cello performance student in the studio of Prof. Danjulo Ishizaka at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Furthermore, he has taken up a degree in Historical and Contemporary Compositional Technique with Prof. Sebastian Stier at the Hochschule für Musik „Hanns Eisler“ Berlin and is since studying at both schools simultaneously.

To complement and expand his musical education, he has participated in master classes with Prof. Ulrich Voss, Angelos Liakakis, Valentin Radutiu and Prof. Troels Svane, as well as Prof. Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt at the Cello Akademie Rutesheim.

Alexander is an avid chamber musician and has been active as such in numerous groups - in his hometown of Berlin, e.g. organizing a performance of Enescu’s Octet for Strings at the HfM „Hanns Eisler“, as well as internationally: In March of 2019 he played works by Schumann and Fauré at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens, also sharing the stage for some cello ensemble performances with the principal cellists of the Thessaloniki and Athens State Orchestras as well as Prof. Matias de Oliveira Pinto. Since 2019 he is a scholarship holder with Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Berlin e.V.

With musical partners such as Korean pianist Jay Myung, he has been exploring works outside of the standard repertoire: Since first playing together in 2018, the duo have performed sonatas by Erwin Schulhoff und Bohuslav Martinů at events such as the concert series "Slow Listening" at the HfM Berlin. Their collaboration was quick to bear fruit - in October of 2018 they participated in the International Competition for Ostracized Music in Schwerin and were awarded the first prize. In July of 2019, they gave a debut concert at the festival „Musikalischer Sommer in Ostfriesland“.

As a soloist, Alexander was awarded the second prize at the XIV. Gabriellli-Competition at the Berlin University of the Arts in October of 2019. He is also currently a finalist at the Stockport International Young Musicians Competition. Alexander plays a cello by Nicolas Vuillaume (ca. 1860), generously loaned to him by the SINFONIMA Stiftung Mannheim.