Cellist Tanja Tetzlaff has been one of the most influential musicians of her generation for decades, both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. Her playing is characterised in particular by a uniquely fine, at the same time powerful and nuanced sound, which is always accompanied by cultivated musicality. Going beyond the presentation of classical music, incorporating other art forms and engaging with contemporary events is a particular concern of Tanja Tetzlaff.
In April 2021, Tanja Tetzlaff became the first scholarship holder to be awarded the highly endowed Glenn Gould Bach Fellowship of the city of Weimar. She now has the opportunity to realise a film project over two years that relates Bach's famous cello suites to nature and issues of climate change.
Tanja Tetzlaff's special trademark is her extraordinarily broad repertoire. In addition to the great concertos of the standard cello repertoire, she is particularly fond of the cello concertos by Unsuk Chin, John Casken, Witold Lutosławski, Jörg Widmann and Bernd Alois Zimmermann. In September 2022, she will premiere the Double Concerto for Cello & Percussion by Olga Neuwirth with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and percussionist Hans-Kristian Sörensen. Further performances of the work are planned with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra as well as the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestre de chambre de Paris during the 2022/23 season.
In the 2022/23 season Tanja Tetzlaff will be Artist-in-Residence with the Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin, presenting a variety of orchestral and chamber concerts. Other highlights of the season include concerts with the Kristiansand Symfoniorkester, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Philharmonic Orchestra Freiburg, the Musikalische Akademie Mannheim, the NDR Radiophilharmonie and the Essen Philharmonic. In the field of chamber music, she will be touring the USA in spring 2023 in a trio with her brother Christian Tetzlaff and the pianist Kiveli Dörken. In addition, there will be concerts with the Tetzlaff Quartet at venues including the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Pierre Boulez Saal and the Liszt Academy Budapest, as well as exciting projects with the Signum Saxophone Quartet and many more.
In the course of her career, Tanja Tetzlaff has played with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Orchestre de Paris, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. She has worked with renowned conductors including Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Heinz Holliger, Paavo Järvi, Sir Roger Norrington and Robin Ticciati.
Chamber music is a great passion of Tanja Tetzlaff. She is a founding member of the Tetzlaff Quartet and has performed worldwide since 1994 together with Christian Tetzlaff, Elisabeth Kufferath and Hanna Weinmeister. Other regular chamber music partners include violinist Florian Donderer, pianist Lauma Skride, the Signum Saxophone Quartet and a septet led by violinist Franziska Hölscher.
Recordings appear on CAvi, Ars, NEOS and Ondine, including concertos by Wolfgang Rihm and Ernst Toch. A solo CD with Bach suites and works by Thorsten Encke was released in October 2019.
Tanja Tetzlaff studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with Professor Bernhard Gmelin and at the Mozarteum Salzburg with Professor Heinrich Schiff. Since the winter semester 2021/22, she has held a professorship in the cello department at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre. She plays a cello by Giovanni Baptista Guadagnini from 1776.
Konzerte im Festival
, Burg Namedy
Tanja Tetzlaff & Lauma Skride
Tanja Tetzlaff, Lauma Skride
Beethoven, Pejačević, Schostakowitsch