Born in 1987 in Zwickau, Germany, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker has been the recipient of many awards and prizes, including first prize at the Rostropovich Competition in Paris in 2005 and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2009. Marie-Elisabeth Hecker had her first cello lessons in 1992 at the Zwickau Robert Schumann Conservatory before going on to study with Peter Bruns at the Carl Maria Weber Conservatory in Dresden and in Leipzig at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Hochschule. Marie-Elisabeth Hecker is the kind of performer who seems to have been born for her instrument. Tall and willowy, she radiates an instinctive certainty as she plays, often with her eyes shut, her entire presence and manner – bowing, fingering, body language – exuding a sense that music and the cello are in her genes. Her particular intensity of expression has been described by Die ZEIT as “heartbreakingly sad and instinctively beautiful.” Among the highlights of her career to date are performances with the Maryinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Fabio Luisi, Kremerata Baltica and Gidon Kremer, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Emmanuel Krivine, the Deutsches Symphony Orchestra Berlin and Alan Buribayev, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Alexander Shelley, the Orchestre de Paris and Marek Janowski, the Gewandhaus Leipzig and Gérad Korsten, the Dresden Philharmonic and Dimitri Kitayenko, the Orchestra della Suisse Romande and Marek Janowski, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Yakov Kreizberg, the Orchestre National de France and Marc Albrecht, the NDR Radio Hannover and Eivind Gullberg Jensen, the Spanish National Orchestra and Sylvain Cambreling, the Royal Flemish Philharmonic and Philippe Herreweghe, the Luxemburg Philharmonic and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Kent Nagano, and the Filarmonica della Scala and Daniel Harding. Her recital venues have included Amsterdam, Baden-Baden, Barcelona, Berlin, Florence, London, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Vancouver, Verbier and Lucerne Festivals and her solo repertoire extends from the Bach Suites through Romantic works to the music of contemporary composers. Marie-Elisabeth Hecker is supported by the Kronberg Academy.
Last updated: September 2011
Photograph taken by Benjamin Ealovega
"This is a marvellous disc, one of the most enjoyable I have heard in a long time... a great line-up of soloists, who seem to know one another very well, or to have clicked miraculously, with results that, in the case of the 'Trout' Quintet, are more completely satisfactory than any account I have ever heard of this work."
BBC Music Magazine, July 2009
BBT Project: Pentatone recording of Schubert's Trout Quintet, a collaboration between BBT Award Winners Martin Helmchen, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Antoine Tamestit, with BBT Honorary Committee member Christian Tetzlaff violin, plus Alois Posch double bass
Not only is the BBT-Award a unique financial aid, but it also establishes ties to great musicians and patrons. The Award inspires work on new ideas and helps me to use the financial means for productive purposes. I am very glad to have met a number of people, who regularly support me, provide advice and help me to find my place in the music world.