Julian Steckel is a German cellist who was raised in a musical family and taught music since the age of 5. The son of a piano teacher, Vilja Steckel, and a conductor and violin teacher, Helfried Steckel, his teachers have included Ulrich Voss,
Gustav Rivinius,
Boris Pergamenschikow,
Heinrich Schiff, and
Antje Weithaas. The winner of the ARD Music Competition in Munich in 2010, as well as the
Munich Chamber Orchestra Prize and the Oehms Classics Prize,
Steckel has also won awards at the
Rostropovich Competition, the Grand Prix
Feuermann, and the
Pablo Casals Competition.
Steckel is a frequent performer with leading conductors, such as
Roger Norrington,
Mario Venzago,
Christopher Hogwood,
Andrey Boreyko,
Michael Sanderling,
Andrew Litton,
Lan Shui, and
John Storgårds, among others, and has appeared in concert with the
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the
Orchestre de Paris, the
Kremerata Baltica, the
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian State Orchestra, and the
Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Budapest and Warsaw.
Steckel is highly active in the field of chamber music performance, and since 2011, he has been a professor at Rostock University of Music and Drama. He has recorded works by
Korngold,
Goldschmidt, and
Bloch with
Daniel Raiskin and the
Rheinische Philharmonie State Orchestra, and he has regularly partnered with pianist
Paul Rivinius to record the cello repertoire, performing works by
Mendelssohn,
Rachmaninov,
Prokofiev,
Debussy,
Fauré,
Poulenc,
Saint-Saëns, and
Nadia Boulanger.