The Hotchkiss Concert Series is pleased to present cellist Alexander Hülshoff and pianist Andreas Frölich in concert Saturday, May 4 at 7 p.m. at the Katherine M. Elfers Hall, Esther Eastman Music Center. Both musicians hail from Germany. The program includes Claude Debussy’s Sonata in D Minor for piano and violoncello, Franz Schubert’s Sonata for Arpeggione and piano in A minor, and Edvard Grieg’s Sonata for Arpeggione and piano in A minor. The concert is free and open to the public; no ticket reservations are necessary.

Alexander Hülshoff

Alexander Hülshoff has established himself in recent years as one of Germany’s leading cellists. His interpretations are distinguished for their expressiveness coupled with an unmistakable, warm and lyrical tone, which are much appreciated by audiences and musical partners alike and are his outstanding qualities on the world’s concert platforms. He is guest soloist with major international orchestras such as the German Radio Philharmonic, the German State Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic of Brno, the New Philharmonic of Westphalia, Rom Symphony Orchestra, the Enescu Philharmonic, the Tel Aviv Soloist Ensemble, the Limburg Symphony Orchestra of Maastricht, the Armenian Philharmonic and many others.

Chamber music plays a significant role and has an important place in Alexander Hülshoff’s work. His cello performances include appearances with the Bamberg Trio and fellow musicians such as Pinchas Zukerman, Hagai Shaham, Vadim Gluzman, Fine Arts Quartet, Gil Sharon, Rainer Honeck, Boris Garlitsky in renowned concert halls such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Rotterdam’s De Doelen and the Wigmore Hall in London. He has been guest instrumentalist at the Schleswig Holstein Festival, the Enescu Festival, Kfar Blum in Israel and the Amadéo Festival. He is artistic director of the Kloster Kamp Chamber Music Festival.

Numerous CDs testify to the breadth of his musical scope, which includes works by, amongst others, Brahms, Beethoven, Schubert, Shostakovich, Bloch and Servais. His recordings are released under the Novalis, Naxos, Musicaphon,Paladino, Brilliant and Hänssler Classic.

His concert tours regularly take him to other European countries, the Near, Middle and Far East as well as to Asia and North and South America.

In 1997 Alexander Hülshoff, whose most important teacher was Lynn Harrell, was appointed Professor of Cello at the Folkwang University of the Arts. At the moment he is Artistic Director of the Orchesterzentrum in Dortmund (www.orchesterzentrum.de), the institute for professional orchestral training of four universities of music (Cologne, Essen, Düsseldorf, Detmold). Since 2011 he is also the artistic director of the Villa Musica Music Festival (www.villamusica.de).

Andreas Frölich

Andreas Frölich studied at the conservatories in Freiburg and Köln. He has won prizes at various international piano competitions (e.g. Senigallia, Finale Ligure, Milan and the International Music Competition in Vienna). His concert performances take him both as a soloist with internationally well-known orchestras and as the pianist in the Berlin Mendelssohn Trio and the Ensemble Wien (which includes the leader and members of the Vienna Philharmonic), to the leading concert venues in Europe, South America and Asia, as well as to South Africa and Australia (e.g. Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Musikverein Wien, Philharmonie in Cologne, Ga München Gasteig - Munich, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, Konzerthaus Berlin, Teatro Municipal Rio de Janeiro) and to major international music festivals, including the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Mozartfest Würzburg, the Emilia Romagna Festival and many more all over the world.

His artistic activity also includes numerous radio productions for all the leading German broadcasters, and more than thirty CD productions, some of them award-winning, for CPO, EMI, OehmsClassics, BMG and VMS. Andreas Frölich is the artistic director of the Amadeo Festival in Aachen and the Orpheo Concert Series in Kerkrade, and the chairman of the jury and artistic director of the international piano competition ‘Prix Amadeo de piano’ in Aachen. In addition, he is the musical director of the EURIADE Festival. He is a professor at the Cologne University of Music and Dance in Cologne on its Aachen campus and gives regular master classes as visiting professor at the international Summer Academy organized by the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In addition, he is in demand as a juror at numerous international piano competitions.

Esther Eastman Music Center

The Esther Eastman Music Center celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2015. A LEED-certified building adjoining The Hotchkiss School's main building and completed in 2005, the Center is home to state-of-the art music facilities and the Katherine M. Elfers Hall — a breathtaking concert hall with world-class acoustics. The hall has become one of the area’s main cultural destinations, offering student and guest concerts throughout the year, all free of charge. The guest concert series has welcomed an acclaimed roster of international musicians, including the Fine Arts Quartet, violinists Midori and Glenn Dicterow, cellist Robert deMaine, pianists Boris Berman, Olga Kern, Leon Fleisher, and Guarneri String Quartet, among many others.

The Hotchkiss School

Founded in 1891, The Hotchkiss School is a coeducational boarding school located at 11 Interlaken Road in Lakeville, Connecticut. Katherine M. Elfers Hall, Esther Eastman Music Center is situated in the lower level of the main building. For more information about this and other arts events at The Hotchkiss School call 860-435-4423.