Raphaela Gromes plays a cello by Carlo Bergonzi from 1840, provided to her from a private source.
Raphaela Gromes, the „most successful German cellist of the present day“ (Rondo magazine) has been an exclusive Sony Classical artist since 2016 and has impressed her audience and the press with „elegance, commitment, technical perfection, expressiveness and range of variation in both dynamics and vibrato“ (Le Diapason).
Biography
She attracted attention with intelligently designed programs and exciting world premiere recordings, such as the rediscovery of Offenbach’s „Hommage á Rossini“, Richard Strauss’s first cello sonata, or the cello concertos by Julius Klengel and Matilde Capuis. Her recordings have received numerous awards, including the OPUS Klassik, the Diapason D’Or and the German Record Critics‘ Award.Raphaela Gromes has also been increasingly committed to music by female composers. On her worldwide acclaimed album „Femmes“, she presented 23 female composers from the Middle Ages to the present day, leading the German classical music charts for months.In addition to appearances at the Wiener Konzerthaus, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the BOZAR in Brussels and the KKL Luzern, she has also toured the USA, China, Korea and Central America.
She plays with orchestras such as the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the NDR Orchestra Hamburg, HR Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Prague Symphony Orchestra, the DSO Berlin, the Festival Strings Lucerne and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and works with conductors such as Julian Rachlin, Kent Nagano, Michael Sanderling, Pietari Inkinen, Ari Rasilainen, Matthew Halls, Nicholas Carter, Roberto Gonzales – Monjas, Cristoph Poppen and Anna Rakitina.After her junior studies in Leipzig with Peter Bruns, Raphaela Gromes continued her studies in 2010 in Munich with Wen-Sinn Yang and in Vienna with Reinhard Latzko and received important impulses in master classes with David Geringas, Yo-Yo Ma, Wolfgang Boettcher, Kristin van der Goltz and Anner Bylsma.Since 2012, Raphaela Gromes has formed a permanent duo with pianist Julian Riem, who also works as an arranger and thus lays the foundation for the diversity of her programs, for example with harp, vocals or saxophone quartet. Their performances are celebrated as a „gain for the music world“, as they „redefine instrumental duets in their own way“: „Gromes and Riem make chamber music in a symbiotic way“ (Wilhelm Sinkowicz, Die Presse).Several works have already been dedicated to the Duo Gromes – Riem, e.g. by Johannes Wiederhofer, Kevin Volans, Dorothea Hofmann and Igor Loboda.As a cultural ambassador for SOS Children’s Villages worldwide and the José Carreras Foundation, Raphaela Gromes is committed to give hope, joy and comfort with her music to people who are facing difficult challenges.
In solidarity with Ukraine, she recently traveled to Kyiv to give a concert with the Ukrainian National Orchestra in the Philharmonic Hall. With the Ukrainian National Orchestra and Volodymyr Sirenko, she also recorded her new CD with Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and works by Ukrainian composers and will perform with them at the Berlin Philharmonie, Essen Philharmonie, Vaduz and Antwerp, among others. In addition to debuts with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and in Japan, Australia and Taiwan, Raphaela Gromes will be an artist in residence at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival in 2025, performing various programs in a wide variety of formations.