Julian Steckel

cello

Written music is potential energy that a performer must unleash. Audiences can tell if a
musician really feels that energy, or if their expression is second-hand. When Julian plays,
he is sharing something fragile and alive. “As an interpreter, I’ve started trusting my inner
life more and letting the audience in,” he says. “It’s a kind of vulnerability that makes you
stronger.” His first child was born at the end of 2018. Since then, his conviction has grown,
his sense for metaphor expanded.
He knows that making music for an audience occasionally involves tipping the scales too
far one way or another. But he is aware of his responsibility toward what is often called the
“intentions of the composer.” He dives deep into scores, investigating the organic connections
that give a work its unity. “If you know one room in an apartment, but not that the
apartment has seven other rooms, you won’t even understand the room you’re in,” he
says. When Julian plays, the music is in safe hands. You listen for his discoveries; what the
music, through him, is trying to tell you.
“ As an interpreter, I’ve started trusting my inner
life more and letting the audience in. It’s a kind of
vulnerability that makes you stronger.”
Every life is a series of experiences, encounters, memories, places. Sometimes it’s possible
to understand the contours of a musician’s ability through a list of these moments.
Julian’s solo career was launched after he won the prestigious ARD Musikwettbewerb in
2010. Since then, he has soloed with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Symphonieorchester
des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de
Paris, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. He’s
worked with the conductors Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Roger Norrington, Valery Gergiev,
Jakub Hrůša, Mario Venzago, Fabien Gabel, John Storgårds, Lahav Shani, Antony Hermus,
Christian Zacharias and Michael Sanderling. His chamber music partners include Janine
Jansen, Christian Tetzlaff, Karen Gomyo, Antje Weithaas, Renaud Capuçon, Veronika
Eberle, Vilde Frang, Antoine Tamestit, Lars Vogt, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Paul Rivinius, Denis
Kozhukhin, the Modigliani, Armida and Ébène quartets.