DAVID FINCKEL

2008/ 09 Full Biography (968 Words)


Cellist David Finckel leads a multifaceted career as concert performer, recording artist, educator, arts administrator, and cultural entrepreneur, placing him in the ranks of today’s most esteemed and influential classical musicians.

He has been hailed as a “world class soloist” (Denver Post) and “one of the top ten, if not top five, cellists in the world today” (Nordwest Zeitung, Germany). With pianist Wu Han, David Finckel has appeared at the most prestigious venues and concert series across the United States, including New York’s Lincoln Center, Morgan Library, Town Hall, and 92nd Street Y; Washington’s Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Institute, and Dumbarton Oaks; San Francisco Performances and Stanford Lively Arts; Wisconsin’s Union Theater; Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater; UCLA’s Performing Arts Series; Atlanta’s Spivey Hall; the University of Chicago’s Mandel Hall; Boston’s Gardner Museum; Princeton University Concerts; the University of Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium; the Cleveland Chamber Music Society; New Orleans Friends of Chamber Music; Santa Barbara’s UCSB Arts and Letters; and Aspen’s Harris Concert Hall. The duo is regularly featured in the country’s leading music festivals, and has recently performed at the Aspen Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, and Chamber Music Northwest. The duo’s international engagements have taken them to Mexico, Canada, the Far East, Scandinavia, and continental Europe to unanimous critical acclaim. Recent duo highlights include debut performances in Germany and at Finland’s Kuhmo Festival, their presentation of the complete Beethoven cycle in Tokyo, and a third appearance at London’s Wigmore Hall.

Last season, with pianist Wu Han, David Finckel gave the world premiere of Pierre Jalbert’s Cello Sonata at the Aspen Music Festival. A new work for cello and piano by award-winning composer George Tsontakis is scheduled to be premiered by David Finckel and Wu Han during the 2008-2009 season. Recent appearances as orchestral soloist include Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Shostakovich’s First Concerto and the Beethoven Triple Concerto (with Wu Han and violinist Margaret Batjer) with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as performances and recordings of the Dvorák Concerto and Augusta Read Thomas’s Ritual Incantations with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, and John Harbison’s Cello Concerto with the Albany Symphony.

As cellist of the Emerson String Quartet, David Finckel has won eight Grammy Awards including two honors for “Best Classical Album,” three Gramophone Magazine Awards, and the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, awarded in 2004 for the first time to a chamber ensemble. Through its insightful performances, brilliant artistry, and technical mastery, the Emerson String Quartet has established itself among the world’s foremost chamber ensembles, playing over 100 concerts annually on the world’s most prestigious stages.

David Finckel’s expansive musical activities include the launch of ArtistLed, classical music’s first musician directed, Internet based recording company, which, in 2007, celebrated its tenth year. All ten ArtistLed recordings, including their release of Beethoven’s complete works for piano and cello, have received critical acclaim and are available via the company’s website at www.artistled.com. The Denver Post described ArtistLed as “a classical music breakthrough.” In Time magazine, Terry Teachout hailed ArtistLed’s Tchaikovsky disc as “a performance that ranks among the great chamber music recordings of the postwar era.” The label’s “Russian Classics” release, featuring works by Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich, received BBC Music Magazine’s coveted “Editor's Choice.” A recent addition to the ArtistLed catalogue features David Finckel’s recording of the Dvorák Concerto and Augusta Read Thomas’s Ritual Incantations (world premiere recording). This season, ArtistLed releases its eleventh album, a recording of the Schubert piano trios, featuring David Finckel, Wu Han, and violinist Philip Setzer.

David Finckel and Wu Han have served as Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004. In recent years, they have become widely recognized for their initiatives in expanding audiences for classical music, and for guiding the careers of countless young musicians. They are also the founders and Artistic Directors of Music@Menlo, a chamber music festival in Silicon Valley that has garnered international acclaim since its inception in 2003. Prior to launching Music@Menlo, Wu Han and David Finckel served for three seasons as Artistic Directors of SummerFest La Jolla.
David Finckel has been the subject of numerous feature stories around the globe in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Toronto Star, New York Newsday, The Mercury News, Billboard, The Strad, BBC Music Magazine, Time Out London, and Tokyo’s Ongaku-no-Tomo. On television, he has appeared on NBC Nightly News, A&E Network’s Breakfast with the Arts, Channel 13’s New York Voices, CNN’s Turner Entertainment Report and European Business News. He has also been a frequent guest on American Public Media’s Performance Today, Saint Paul Sunday, and other popular classical radio programs.

Born into a family of cellists, David Finckel began his musical studies with his father. At the age of 15 he made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations as winner of the orchestra's junior competition, and two years later returned to capture the senior division prize and another appearance with the orchestra, playing the Schumann Concerto. At 17, David Finckel played for Mstislav Rostropovich, and soon after became the great cellist's first American pupil. His studies spanned a nine-year period, culminating in a performance of Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante with the Basel Symphony under Rostropovich's direction. He was the first winner of the New England Conservatory Piatigorsky Artist Award, chosen from an international field for his excellence as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher.

David Finckel teaches during the summer at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and has served as a regular faculty member of the Issac Stern Chamber Music Workshops in New York, Jerusalem, Paris, and Japan. He lives in New York with his wife, Wu Han, and their fourteen-year-old daughter, Lilian.