BBT Celebrated: Nicolas Altstaedt
Cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, BBT fellow in 2009, talks about why Schubert’s Trout Quintet is special to him and weighs in on our debate, “Is Talent Enough?”
Can you share a special memory about the year you received your BBT Fellowship?
I heard the news that I had received a BBT Fellowship during a time when I was working on two concerto recordings. I remember the Ebène Quartet arriving in Berlin at night, when I was just finishing my last notes of the cadenzas for Haydn’s concerto with the Kammerakademie Potsdam in the freezing Jesus-Christus Kirche in Dahlem. I joined them for a few happy hours sharing these news, before leaving in the early morning fog to take a train to my hometown, Heidelberg. I also remember listening to the edits of a piece that I had recorded three weeks before and which fitted my state of exhaustion and insomnia: the Schumann concerto.