Valentino Worlitzsch

First prize, the audience prize, the music prize of the Bonn Rotary Club and a one-year scholarship from the Foundation for Musical Life are the impressive results of cellist Valentino Worlitzsch’s participation in the 2016 German Music Competition in Bonn. Born in 1989 in Hannover, he received his first cello and piano lesson at the age of four. As a cellist and pianist, soloist and chamber musician, he was already a prize-winner of national and international competitions such as the International Grotrian-Steinweg Piano Competition during his early teenage years, and was awarded the Eduard Söring Prize from the Foundation for Musical Life for his outstanding achievements on both instruments.

Since then, he has amassed numerous national and international awards. In addition to receiving first prize at the German Music Competition, he won first prize and two special awards at the International Music Competition “Pacem in Terris” in Bayreuth and second prize and the audience award at the “Ton und Erklärung” Competition. He was awarded special prizes at the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann in Berlin and at the Leoš Janáček International Competition in Brno. He was a semifinalist at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich as well as at the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competi-tion in St. Petersburg and was distinguished as the best participant ex aequo at the Pierre Fournier Award in London.

Valentino Worlitzsch graduated under Bernhard Gmelin in Hamburg and Michel Strauss in Paris. In 2013, his studies continued with a master’s and performance degree under Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt in Weimar, where he has also been teaching as Schmidt’s assistant since 2015. Parallel to his cello studies, he also studied piano under Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and Johanna Wiedenbach as well as conducting under Nicolás Pasquet. He was further inspired through master classes and lessons with Wolfgang Boettcher, László Fenyő, David Geringas, Frans Helmerson, Jens Peter Maintz, Johannes Moser, Philippe Muller and Wen-Sinn Yang.

As a soloist, Valentino Worlitzsch has performed with, among others, the Düsseldorf Symphoniker, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and has already played at notable venues such as the Wigmore Hall in London, the Berliner Philharmonie, the St. Petersburg Philharmonia, the Beethovenhall in Bonn and the Düsseldorf Tonhalle. In addition, he passionately devotes himself to chamber music – his partners include Elisabeth Brauß, Nils Mönkemeyer, Eldar Nebolsin, Christopher Park, Natalia Prischepenko, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt and William Youn. He is also a regular guest at renowned festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Ludwigsburg Festival and the Heidelberger Frühling.

Valentino Worlitzsch has been a longstanding scholarship recipient of the German
Academic Scholarship Foundation, the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation and the Yehudi
Menuhin Foundation “Live Music Now”; he was a Masefield Scholarship Recipient of the
Alfred Toepfer Foundation. As an award winner of the Competition of German Musical Instruments Fund in the Foundation for Musical Life, he has played on a cello labeled “Grancino” (Roman school, 18th century) since 2015, graciously lent to the trust by a private owner.

Photography: Felix Broede

The artist's homepage:

https://www.valentino-worlitzsch.com