Lauded for ‘delicate yet virtuosic’ playing (BBC Music Magazine) and ‘seamless subtleties of tone colour’ with ‘plenty of edge’ (The Strad), Swiss-French-German cellist Christoph Croisé is quickly building an international reputation as one of the most captivating young concert soloists to emerge in recent years.
At the age of 17, he made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall, where he has performed on several occasions since. He also appears regularly in further world-renowned concert halls including the Tonhalle Zurich, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Wigmore Hall London, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Residenz Munich, the Capella St. Petersburg, the Philharmonia St. Petersburg and the State Philharmonia Baku.
As a soloist, he has appeared under the batons of conductors such as M. Sanderling, M. Venzago, D. Boyd, with various orchestras including the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra, the Bern Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Camerata Zurich, the Southwest German Philharmonic Orchestra of Constance, the Sichuan Symphony Orchestra, the State Capella Symphony Orchestra St. Petersburg, Russia, the Collegium Musicum Basel, the Izmir State Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre symphonique de Mulhouse.
Christoph Croisé is regularly invited to perform at prestigious festivals such as the Festival “Musical Olympus” in St. Petersburg, New York, and Baku, the Lucerne Festival, the Radio France Festival Montpellier, the Davos Festival “Young Artists in Concert”, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, the Salzkammergut Festwochen Gmunden, the Schwarzwald Music Festival, the Klosters Music Frestival, the Festival de Sully, the Belfast International Arts Festival, the Emilia-Romagna Festival and the Festival de Musique de Wissembourg.
As a chamber musician, he has performed with Dmitri Sitkovetsky, Mayuko Kamio, Bartłomiej Nizioł, Isabelle van Keulen, Andrey Baranov, Sergey Ostrovsky, Kirill Troussov, Alexander Zemtsov, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Marie Chilemme, Christoffer Sundqvist, Anna Fedorova, Oliver Schnyder, Oxana Shevchenko, Nikita Mndoyants, Lorenzo Soulès and Alexander Panfilov.
He has been laureate of several first prizes at international competitions including the Schoenfeld International String Competition Harbin/China (2016), the “2nd Berliner International Music Competition 2018” (First Grand Prize), the Manhattan International Music Competition (2016), the International “Salieri-Zinetti” Competition in Verona/Italy (2016), the International Johannes Brahms Competition (2015) among others.
christoph has released 8 studio albums so far including his third album with both Haydn cello concertos on AVIE Records in March 2019 which won the Supersonic Award from the Pizzicato Magazine and the „Clef D’Or“ for the best concerto album of 2019 from the ResMusica Magazine. His current album „Voyage Exotique“ is his first album with only original works written and played by himself.
Christoph is often involved in baroque projects as a complement to modern performance. He has worked extensively in the field, performing as soloist with the “Il Pomo d’Oro” baroque orchestra and working with Maurice Steger and Nicolas Altstaedt. In 2020 and 2021 he released a CD and video of the complete set of Viola da Gamba sonatas and the six Cello Suites by J. S. Bach with a 1720 Guarneri ‘Filius Andrea’ baroque cello.
In addition, Christoph composes his own pieces, of which he expresses his emotions and ideas influenced by different styles, from baroque and classical to Jazz and electronic music. Christoph Croisé is the artistic director of the Niederlenzer Musiktage, a classical and electronic music festival, which takes place every year at the end of May in Switzerland.
Christoph Croisé plays on a rare Italian master cello, crafted in 1680.