Marie-Elisabeth Hecker & Martin Helmchen
Biography Marie-Elisabeth Hecker & Martin Helmchen
Marie-Elisabeth Hecker
made her international breakthrough with her sensational success at the 8th Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 2005, where she became the rst contestant in the event’s history to win the rst prize as well as two special prizes.
Born in 1987 in Robert Schumann’s hometown Zwickau, Hecker began learning the cello at the age of ve, with the distinguished German cellist Peter Bruns becoming her principal teacher. She continued her studies with Heinrich Schi and subsequently took part in masterclasses with eminent gures such as Anner Bylsma, Frans Helmerson, Bernard Greenhouse, Gary Ho man and Steven Isserlis.
Among the highlights of her career to date are performances with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre de Paris, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Spanish National Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin and Vienna Symphony Orchestra.
She had collaborated with conductors such as Barenboim, Gergiev, Harding, Hengelbrock, Herreweghe, Janowski, Luisi, Nagano, Saraste, Thielemann, von Dohnányi and Zacharias. In addition, she has appeared in recitals with her partner Martin Helmchen in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Florence, Frankfurt (Alte Oper), Hohenems (Schubertiade), Jerusalem, London (Wigmore Hall), Lucerne (Lucerne Festival), Madrid, Milan, Munich, New York (Carnegie Hall), Paris, Vancouver, Verbier (Festival) and Zurich.
In co-operation with Music Road Rwanda Marie-Elisabeth Hecker regularly travels to Rwanda in order to support a local music school with concerts and educational projects.
Martin Helmchen
There are shooting-stars who enter the concert arena to the sound of a drum-roll, but often rapidly disappear again. And then, there are artists who gradually play their way into the footlights, until one day one cannot imagine them ever not being there. Normally, winning the Clara Haskil Competition would also have catapulted nineteen-year-old Martin Helmchen into the celebrity carousel of the classical music world. But concert agents and record companies were more cautious. And so Martin Helmchen developed his own attitude to musicmaking, and established himself in the the piano world’s premier league, with his expressive, utterly intimate playing.
He appears regularly with the world-class orchestras of Boston and Chicago, London and Cleveland, Paris and Tokyo, and with major German radio symphony orchestras. After his débuts with the Berlin, Vienna and New York Philharmonic Orchestras and the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, he has nally reached Olympian rank. The conductors he works with include Herbert Blomstedt and Philippe Herreweghe, Marek Janowski and Vladimir Jurowski, Sir Neville Marriner, Andris Nelsons und Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Michael Sanderling, David Zinman, and above all, his long-time collaborator and supporter, Christoph von Dohnanyi. Martin Helmchen is particularly attentive to the eld of chamber music – a passion which was particularly stimulated by Boris Pergamenschikow. Among Helmchen’s most frequent chamber music partners are his wife, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Juliane Banse, Matthias Goerne, Veronika Eberle, Julia Fischer, Sharon Kam, and Christian Tetzla ; and since 2010 he has also been teaching chamber music at the celebrated Kronberg Academy.
Helmchen is one of those artists with an aesthetic, culturally penetrating vision of a work, their ngers re ecting every aspect of its universe. Helmchen’s control of sound, subtle dynamic range and rhythmical mastery leave one speechless.’ Christophe Huss, ‘Le Devoir’ July 2015.
