Steven John Isserlis was born on 19 December 1958 and is a British cellist.
28 Facts About Steven Isserlis
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Steven Isserlis is noted for his diverse repertoire and distinctive sound which is deployed with his use of gut strings.
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Steven Isserlis's recordings have garnered two Gramophone Awards, a Classical BRIT Award, a BBC Music Magazine Award, and two Grammy Award nominations among others.
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Steven Isserlis is one of the only two living cellists inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame.
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Steven Isserlis currently plays on the 1726 Marquis de Corberon cello made by Antonio Stradivari on loan from the Royal Academy of Music.
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Steven Isserlis's mother was a piano teacher, and his father was a keen amateur musician.
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Steven Isserlis has described how "playing music, playing together", was an integral part of his early family life.
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Steven Isserlis's grandfather, Julius Isserlis, who was a Russian Jew, was one of 12 musicians allowed to leave Russia in the 1920s to promote Russian culture, but he never returned.
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Steven Isserlis went to the City of London School, which he left at the age of 14 to move to Scotland to study under the tutelage of Jane Cowan.
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From 1976 to 1978 Steven Isserlis studied at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music with Richard Kapuscinski.
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The name Steven Isserlis is one of many European variations of the Hebrew name 'Israel'.
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The result of this was The Protecting Veil, and Steven Isserlis premiered it at the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Oliver Knussen.
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The piece and Steven Isserlis' subsequent recording of it were met with both critical and public acclaim.
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Since then, Steven Isserlis has had an active solo career and regularly appears with many of the world's leading ensembles.
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Steven Isserlis has performed with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra.
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Steven Isserlis has curated concert series for Wigmore Hall, 92nd Street Y in New York and the Salzburg Festival.
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Steven Isserlis is committed to authentic performance and frequently performs with period instrument orchestras.
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Steven Isserlis has performed Beethoven with fortepianist Robert Levin in Boston and London, and Dvorak's Cello Concerto with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment with Sir Simon Rattle.
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Steven Isserlis has published several editions and arrangements, principally for Faber Music, and was an advisor on new editions of Beethoven's cello works, as well as the cello concertos of Dvorak and Elgar.
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Steven Isserlis commissioned a new completion of Prokofiev's Cello Concertino from the Udmurt musicologist Vladimir Blok, which was premiered in 1997 with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Mark Wigglesworth.
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Steven Isserlis has presented a number of festivals with long-term collaborators such as Joshua Bell, Stephen Hough, Mikhail Pletnev, Andras Schiff, Denes Varjon, Olli Mustonen, Tabea Zimmermann, and actors Barry Humphries and Simon Callow.
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Steven Isserlis is artistic director of the International Musicians Seminar, Prussia Cove in West Cornwall, where he both performs and teaches.
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Steven Isserlis currently plays on the 1726 Marquis de Corberon cello made by Antonio Stradivari on loan from the Royal Academy of Music.
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Steven Isserlis is the author of two books for children on the lives of famous composers: the first is Why Beethoven Threw the Stew, and the second is Why Handel Waggled His Wig.
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Steven Isserlis has written three stories that have been set to music by Oscar-winning composer Anne Dudley.
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Steven Isserlis's recordings reflect the breadth and eclecticism of his repertoire.
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For Hyperion Records, Steven Isserlis has recorded Schumann's music for cello and piano, and the complete solo cello suites by Bach, which has won many awards, including Listeners' Disc of the Year on BBC Radio 3's CD Review, Gramophone's Instrumental Disc of the Year, and "Critic's Choice" at the 2008 Classical Brits.
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In 2017, Steven Isserlis's recording of Haydn's Cello Concertos was nominated for a Grammy Award.