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German cellist
Anja Lechner has been an important proponent of cross-genre musical experimentation, especially in relation to tango music.
Lechner was born in Kassel, West Germany, in 1961. She studied in Germany with
Heinrich Schiff and at the University of Indiana with
János Starker. As a rising young cellist,
Lechner won the Förder Prize of the City of Munich in 1990, and in 1992 she was the subject of a feature on German public broadcaster ARD. That year,
Lechner co-founded the
Rosamunde Quartet, which recorded mainstream works by
Haydn and
Shostakovich, but also essayed music by Ukrainian composer
Valentin Silvestrov (
Lechner and the
Rosamunde appeared on the experimentally oriented classical/jazz label
ECM's collection of
Silvestrov chamber works entitled
leggiero, pesante, which was nominated for a Grammy in 2002). She has also performed world premieres of works by Günter Bialas and
Tigran Mansurian. These recordings brought
Lechner further attention from
ECM; she had already made her recording debut in 1998 with Tango Gift (with pianist
Peter Ludwig) and, in addition to the aforementioned
leggiero, pesante, she had joined a chamber group for a 2002 recording of music by
Misha Alperin.
Many of
Lechner's releases have been as part of chamber groups, performing either contemporary music or tango. Although she has been interested in the possibilities of improvisation,
Lechner has avoided the jazz side of
ECM's catalog. "Jazz plays a big role for me," she has observed. "But I do not play jazz. I would guess that after playing classical music for so long, this is a bit like comparing me to growing up in Upper Bavaria, but never having spoken Bavarian to my parents and therefore not me either. But I could do it." Among her most celebrated projects was Ojos Negros, produced in collaboration with the Argentine composer
Dino Saluzzi and the
Rosamunde Quartet; she toured the U.S. with these forces in 2007. In 2017
Lechner and cellist
Agnès Vesterman released
Hieroglyphen der Nacht, another album of music by
Silvestrov.