Nadège Rochat, Royal Scottish National Orchestra & Benjamin Levy
Biography Nadège Rochat, Royal Scottish National Orchestra & Benjamin Levy
Nadège Rochat
is a distinguished expressive voice among young cellists. Besides her wide-ranging musical interests in baroque, classical and romantic repertoire, she likes to explore forgotten composers, world music and contemporary pieces. She started to play the cello at the age of four and first studied in Geneva, then in Cologne with Maria Kliegel. She attended master classes with Heinrich Schiff and Anner Bijlsma among others, and graduated from the Royal Academy of Music under Robert Cohen where she now has a teaching assignment. She won several first prizes in Swiss, German and British competitions and won twice the Swiss SUISA prize for the interpretation of contemporary music. Nadège Rochat has performed in the Tonhalle Zürich, Vienna’s Musikverein, Konzerthaus Berlin, Carnegie Hall New York, the Mariinsky Theatre in St.Petersburg, the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the KKL in Luzern or the Victoria Hall in Geneva amongst others. She has worked with orchestras such as the Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Dortmunder Philharmoniker, the Orchestra of the Norddeutsche Rundfunk (NDR), the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, the Sinfonieorchester Biel/Bienne, the Nordwestdeutsche Sinfonieta, the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, the Orchestre de chambre de Genève and the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra of the Polish radio. Nadège Rochat has appeared in the Festivals of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Cello Unwrapped festival in London, the Settimane musicali of Ascona, the Festival Musica-Musika in Bilbao, the Tannay Festival by Lake Geneva, the MDR Musiksommer, etc. She is a keen chamber musician. Her piano and chamber music partners include Francesco Piemontesi, Bruno Giuranna, Judith Jauregui, Charles-Richard Hamelin, the Fine Arts Quartet, the Girard Quartet, Esther Hoppe, François-Xavier Poizat, Erdem Misirlioglu, Natalia Ehwald, and she collaborates with harpsichordist Anthony Romaniuk in Baroque repertoire. In duo with Spanish guitarist Rafael Aguirre she performs Spanish and Latin repertoire which is documented on her CD “La Vida breve” (2012). Her first CD with the Württembergische Philharmonie and Ola Rudner featured the first cello concertos of Edouard Lalo and Darius Milhaud. Her critically acclaimed last CD “Cello Abbey” (2017), recorded with the Staatskapelle Weimar under Paul Meyer includes the cello concertos of Walton and Elgar as well as the first performance of Ina Boyle’s never performed “Elegy”. An upcoming CD will include Ralph Vaughan-Williams Fantasy on Scottish folk tunes. She plays the cello by Amati/Stradivarius « Ex-Vatican » on generous loan by the Academia de Arte de Florencia. Since the age of 13, Nadège Rochat is a practitioner of oriental belly dance and she is passionate about Flamenco. Dance inspires her approach to music, which for her is not only an imaginary but also a very physical experience. Besides music, Nadège Rochat keeps an interest in European, Arabic and Asiatic philosophies and, as any responsible individual, she aims towards a sustainable way of life.
