Kolja Blacher

Kolja Blacher studied at the Juilliard School in New York and in Salzburg, and was leader of the Berlin Philharmonic for many years. He worked closely together with the conductor Claudio Abbado, likewise with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. A new point of emphasis in his work is the so-called »play-lead« concert, which he has developed intensively with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano and the Taiwan Philharmonic Orchestra. In this type of concert, the concertmaster leads the orchestra. In addition to his orchestral work, Kolja Blacher is also playing all the Beethoven string trios together with Amihai Grosz and Julian Steckel. At the Elbphilharmonie he performs works by Prokofiev and Shostakovich in a chamber music recital of a special kind, where he is supported by three percussionists.