Julian Steckel was a pupil of Ulrich Voss, Gustav Rivinius, Boris Pergamenschikow, Heinrich Schiff and Antje Weithaas. He is a prizewinner of the International Pablo Casals Cello Competition in Kronberg, the International Rostropovich Competition in Paris and the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann, the International Lutoslawski Competition in Warsaw and the German Music Competition in Berlin. As a soloist he has appeared with ensembles such as the Orchestre de Paris, the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Berlin, Stuttgart, Saarbrücken, Frankfurt, Warsaw and Copenhagen, the Orchestre National d'Île de France and the Kremerata Baltica under conductors including Andrey Boreyko, Yoel Levi, Christian Arming, Michael Sanderling and John Storgards. As an enthusiastic chamber musician, Julian Steckel performs at the festivals of Heimbach, Mondsee, Dresden, Ludwigsburg, Kronberg, Bonn and Gstaad together with musicians like Sarah Chang, Christian Tetzlaff, Isabelle Faust, Yuri Bashmet, Gustav Rivinius, Alexander Lonquich, Lars Vogt and the Guarneri, Ébène and the Vogler Quartet. Further performances as a soloist and chamber musician brought him onto the stages of Philharmonie Berlin, Konzerthaus Berlin, Philharmonie Munich, Musikhalle Hamburg, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Salle Pleyel and Théatre du Chatelet in Paris and the Seoul Arts Center. He recently recorded the complete works for cello and piano by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy on AVI-Music, for whom he previously recorded the Lutoslawski Cello Concerto with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Warsaw and works by Mozart and Brahms. Future projects are recordings of the Dallapiccola cello concerto with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin as well as works by Goldschmidt, Korngold and Bloch with the Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz and Daniel Raiskin. Julian Steckel plays a Francesco Rugeri (Cremona 1670-80) as a loan of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and a modern instrument by Urs Mächler (Speyer 2005).
Photograph taken by Marco Borggreve