violist
Dutch violist Chaim Steller has won numerous prizes and awards, including prizes at the 42nd international competition in Markneukirchen and the Gustav Scheck Prize from the Commerzbank foundation for extraordinary achievement as a classical musician. Solo performances with orchestra have taken him to Germany, Italy, and France, playing with the Orchestra Sinfonica del Friuli Venezia Giulia, Chursaechsische Philharmonie and the Vogtlaendische Philharmonie, among others.
As a performer of 20th and 21st century music, Mr. Steller has premiered works by Péter Eötvös, Helmut Lachenmann, Thomas Hummel, and Matthias Pintscher. He has also worked with Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, and Márton Illés on their works, and has performed in the Luzern Festival Academy and at the Klangspuren festival in Innsbruck.
Mr Steller is a member of the Orchestra Mozart, founded by Claudio Abbado, which recently recorded Mozart's violin concertos for Deutsche Grammophon on gut strings with Giuliano Carmignola. He also worked under many notable conductors including Trevor Pinnock, Oliver Knussen, and Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and this summer he will play with the Luzern Festival Orchestra under the personal invitation of Claudio Abbado.
In addition to his work with Trio Dumas, Mr. Steller has performed chamber music works throughout Europe, working with clarinetist Pascal Moragues, members of the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, SWR Orchestra Freiburg, and has worked on the Schönberg serenade op. 24 under the direction of Pierre Boulez. He has played in coachings and masterclasses given by members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Thomas Riebl, Rainer Kussmaul, Jörg Widmann, Antoine Tamestit, Jos van Veldhoven, Alfredo Bernardini, Ervin Schiffer and Candida Thompson.
Mr. Steller was born in 1983 in Amsterdam, started violin lessons at the age of 4. In 1999, after 3 years of violin lessons with Jan Repko, he switched to the viola and went to study with Marjolein Dispa at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. There he graduated Cum Laude in 2004 (Bachelor of Arts). From 2005 he has been studying in Freiburg (Germany) with Prof. Wolfram Christ, where he earned his Soloist degree in 2009.
Chaim Steller plays on a 1959 Max Möller viola.
