Christoph Heesch, born in Berlin in 1995, started to play the cello with Andreas Weller at the age of six, and began attending the Julius-Stern-Institut of Berlin University of the Arts in 2005, where he received lessons from Professor Matias de Oliveira Pinto. From 2008 to 2015 he received instruction from Professor Jens Peter Maintz, and since 2015 from Professor Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, both at Berlin University of the Arts.
To complement his musical training the young cellist has attended masterclasses held by David Geringas, Wolfgang Boettcher, Lászlo Fenyo, Danjulo Ishizaka, Martin Ostertag, Troels Svane, Reinhard Latzko and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. He also receives a scholarship from the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein, where he participates in the intensive music weeks.
Christoph Heesch has won several prizes in the German national “Jugend musiziert” competition for young musicians, for example in 2008 and 2010, when he was awarded 1st prizes in the solo and duet categories and also won various special prize. In 2010 he received the “Ruth-Flesch-Gedächtnispreis” from the Carl Flesch Akademie in Baden-Baden. In 2014 he was also awarded 2nd prize and a special prize at the “International Cello Competition Antonio Janigro” in Croatia. In 2015 he was awarded an honorary prize at the “X Witold Lutoslawski International Cello Competition” in Warsaw. At the “TONALi15” music competition, he received the “Mieczyslaw-Weinberg” prize and a special prize for the best promotion of music through education. In the same year he won 1st prize at the “Domenico-Gabrielli” cello competition. At the “Deutscher Musikwettbewerb 2016” competition in Bonn he reached the semi-finals and was awarded a scholarship. In 2017, he was a semi-finalist at the “Concours Reine Elisabeth”, and in 2018 he was awarded the “Fanny Mendelssohn Förderpreis”, a special prize allowing him to have his own CD produced, which will be released under the GENUIN label in September 2019. As a prize-winner of the 25th competition of the “Deutsche Musikinstrumentenfonds”, he plays a Domenicus Montagnana cello (Venice, 1722), on loan through a trust from a family from London.
Christoph Heesch made his debut as a soloist at the age of eleven, and has since given chamber music and solo performances in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and Spain. From 2005 to 2013 he was a member of the “12 Cellists of the Julius-Stern-Institut”. He has already been invited to perform at the FESTIVAL NEXT GENERATION Bad Ragaz in Switzerland, and is also a member of the ENSEMBLE ESPERANZA, which is made up of scholarship holders from the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein.
Since 2008, Christoph Heesch has been a scholar of the “Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Berlin e. V.” society, and has received a scholarship from the “Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes” since 2015.
February 2018