Biography
His personality showed an experienced, confident but decidedly cerebral perfomer. Hindemith´s Sonata op.11/4 got the programme of to an impressive start, not only on account of Rohde´s large and virile tone but also thanks to the sympathetic delineation of the composer´s purpose (…) Rohde´s tonal distinction seemed to enrich the material of the Solosonata by B. A. Zimmermann, as was the case with the Bloch´s Suite Hebräique.
Generalizations are clearly unknown to him, and he – as the evening showed – suffuses his renditions with inspiration and imaginative power.
(FAZ)
Hartmut Rohde became soon after winning 1.st. Prize at the Deutsche Musikwettbewerb and prizes at the Naumburg Competition NY one of the leading and most sought-after European violists renowned for his stylistic versatility and rhetorical perceptiveness. He delights the public with his special timbres and highly lively interpretations which are always an effective and electrifying illumination of the score.
Hartmut Rohde performs as a soloist with conductors such as Kent Nagano, Pavel Baleff, Paavo Järvi, Massimo Zanetti, Christoph Perick and Michael Sanderling. In addition, he is a regular guest artist at Carnegie Hall New York, Interlochen Festival Michigan, Wigmore Hall in London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Salzburg Festival, Heimbach Festival “Spannungen”, the Festival Pablo Casals in France, Moritzburg Festival, Bantry West Cork Music Festival, Australian Chamber Music Festival, Le Pont Festival in Japan, and the Seoul International Music Festival in Seoul Arts Center. His commitment to contemporary music proves to be evident in his collaboration with composers such as Jörg Widmann, Detlev Glanert, Brett Dean, Wolfgang Rihm, Krzystof Penderecki, and Garth Knox as well as David Philipp Hefti, Sören Nils Eichberg, and Arvydas Malcys.
From 2013-2017 he has been the conductor and artistic director of the NFM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestr in Wroclaw. Worthy of note, the label cpo recently released highly-acclaimed CDs with works by Laks, Jarnach and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Further conducting has taken him to the Biel Symphony Orchestra, Lemberg Symphony Orchestra, Cervo Summer Academy, Aurora Chamber Orchestra Sweden, and the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra. He has given guest concerts in the Berlin Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, at the Wratislawia Cantans Festival, and at the Casals Festival in France. With the Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra Budapest and the Hamburg Camerata, he will conducted concerts in 2019 in the Konzerthaus Vienna and the Hamburg Musikhalle, among other places. A recording of Hans Gal’s piano concerto has been released in 2020 by the cpo label.In September 2019, Rohde appeared as a guest conductor and soloist at the opening of the festival for new music with the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra. Rohde conducted Beethoven’s 2nd Symphony and Mozart’s Magic Flute Overture with the Orquestra Filharmonica in Sao Paulo. In 2023 he conducted in Hambuger Musikhalle and Berliner Konzerthaus the Brahms’ 3. Symphony, Mozart´s “Entführung aus dem Serail” and Haydn-s Cello Concerto alongside with American-German composer Ursula Mamlok´s “Constellations” written for Herbert Bloomstedt and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He frequently conducts concerts of the chamber orchestra of the University of arts Berlin – in 2024 featuring the scholars of Arnold Schönberg. In 2025 he is invited to conduct a CD recording of Brahms´ violin concerto with Danish soloist Niklas Walentin.
As a chamber musician, Hartmut Rohde regularly concertizes in Australia, USA, Canada, South America, Israel, Europe and Switzerland. Numerous competition awards form the basis for international concert activity both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. Chamber music partners include Heinrich Schiff, David Geringas, Lars Vogt, Daniel Hope, Janine Jansen, Arto Noras, Patrick Gallois, Jörg Widmann as well as the Auryn Quartet and the Artis Quartet, among others. The violist is also a founding member of the Mozart Piano Quartet, which remains known as one of the world’s leading piano chamber music ensembles. Not long ago, the quartet received the newly-created OPUS Klassik Award in October 2018. They will tour Asia, South America and the USA from 2019-2021, appearing in their most important music centers.
For the past 20 years Hartmut Rohde is member of the “Spectrum Concerts Berlin” series in the Berliner Philharmonie bringing together most famous soloists under violinist Janine Jansen. 2024 will be its 35th jubilee season. In 2008 the ensemble toured the USA.
After his early studies with Christian Pohl and Prof. Hatto Beyerle, he soon became known as one of the most successful European teachers. He has been a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts since 1993, and is also an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. His students’ successes include leading positions with the Berlin and Munich Philharmonic, with all radio orchestras, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, London, Paris, Rome etc. as well as numerous prizes in competitions such as Banff, ARD Munich, Young Concert Artists NY, Mendelssohn Competition, Brahms Competition, Geneva competition and also include ECHO Klassik Prize winners. He is since 1998 the artistic director of the International Max Rostal Competition Berlin.
Further CD recordings are available from EMI Classics, Decca, BMG / Sony, MDG and Naxos. In 2003 he received the Supersonic Award.
Hartmut Rohde plays an instrument by Ivo Luliano (2016) and a Giuseppe Fiorini (1899).
