With his peerless technical mastery and intensely expressive playing, cellist Janos Starker is universally recognized as one of the world’s supreme musicians.
During the course of his extraordinary career he has appeared as recitalist and soloist with the most prestigious orchestras around the globe and has become one of the most sought after virtuosi and teachers of our time. After almost five decades of appearing on concert stages worldwide, Mr. Starker is now focusing his efforts on teaching. He continues as professor of Indiana University, where he holds the title of Distinguished Professor and where his masterclasses have attracted string players from around the world. Mr. Starker joined the faculty of the School of Music at Indiana University in 1958 and was the first recipient of the Tracy M. Sonneborn Award, an honor given by the University to a faculty member who has achieved distinction both as a teacher and as a performing artist. This season he will conduct numerous cello and chamber music masterclasses and give lectures in the US and Europe, and is honored with a doctorate by the New England Conservatory.
Highlights of recent seasons include a return visit to Tokyo and Hong Kong for recitals, masterclasses, and performances of the Elgar Concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, appearances at New York's 92nd Street Y and a tribute organized by the La Jolla Chamber Music Society in which he was honored with two sold-out concerts. He performed Dohnanyi Konzerstuecke with the Indianapolis Symphony, a special concert at the Kennedy Center celebrating his native Hungary and appeared with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, New Haven Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. In New York, he performed in a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall, appeared with the New York Chamber Symphony at Lincoln Center, and featured the complete Beethoven works for cello and piano as well as all Bach suites for unaccompanied cello.
Mr. Starker has amassed an extensive discography of more than 165 works. Releases on BMG’s RCA Victor Red Seal label include the version for cello of Bartók’s Viola Concerto, the Dvorák Cello Concerto, and Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote. Other recordings are concertos by Hindemith, Schumann, Elgar and Walton, Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro and Fantaisiestücke as well as sonatas by Brahms, Debussy, Martinu and Rachmaninoff. Additional releases can be found on Angel, CRI, Delos, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, London, Mercury, Philips, Seraphim, and other labels worldwide. He re-recorded the Bach suites for BMG’s RCA Victor Red Seal label, a release which won a Grammy Award for the best instrumental solo performance in 1998.
In his native Budapest he began studying the cello when he was six years old. By the age of eight he was teaching his first pupil and by eleven he was performing in public. His early career took him through Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy and on to positions of first cellist with the Budapest Opera and with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1948 he emigrated to the United States, where he subsequently held the post of principal cellist with the Dallas Symphony, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Chicago Symphony under Fritz Reiner.
(March 2009. Please discard previously dated materials and contact publicity@colbertartists.com before making any alterations or cuts.)
