Teachers 2008

V.Despalj • J.Kullberg • R.Latzko • A.Bylsma

Valter Despalj was born in 1947 into a Croatian family of professional musicians. He graduated from the Juilliard School where he studied the cello with Leonard Rose and chamber music with Felix Galimir and the Juilliard Quartet. He also took master classes with Pablo Casals, Pierre Fournier and André Navarra, and did a two years graduate study with Galina Kozolupova at the Moscow Conservatory.

Valter Dešpalj has performed all over the world, including performances at festivals in Gstaad, Lockenhaus, Kuhmo and Dubrovnik, also in some of the most prestigious concert halls, such as Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall in London, Sydney Opera House, Amsterdam′s Concertgebouw, Moscow Conservatory Hall etc. He was soloist with orchestras including Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Dutch Radio Orchestra, Washington National Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony and others, under baton of eminent conductors such as Roberto Benzi, Sergiu Comissiona, James Conlon, Vernon Handley, G?nther Herbig, Hiroyuki Iwaki, Lovro von Mata?i?, Andrzej Markowski, Howard Mitchell and David Zinman. He has played chamber music amongst others with Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, Heinrich Schiff, Philippe Entremont, Yuri Bashmet, Tabea Zimmerman, Irena Grafenauer, Dmitry Sitkovetsky and Alexandre Rabinovitch.
He is professor at the Zagreb Academy of Music, guest professor at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Amstardam Conservatory, editor of cello music with major music publishers, and has been a member of judging panels at the most prestigious international competitions including Tchaikovsky ( Moscow ), Bach ( Leipzig ) and ARD ( Munich ) competitions.

Teachers in previous years

Anner Bylsma • Mats Lidström • Ralph Kirshbaum
Morten Zeuthen • Bjorn Bantock