Around the Music Festival

German cellist Wolfgang Boettcher has died. He was 86 years old. He has long been the principal player of the Berliner Philharmoniker and formed the “Brandis Quartet” with concertmaster Thomas Brandis. He was also a founding member of the “Twelve Cellists of the Berlin Philharmoniker”.

Born in Berlin, he won second place at the 1958 Munich International Music Competition and joined the Berlin Philharmoniker that year. He was the principal player from 1963 to his departure in 1976.

Since 1976, he has been a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, teaching younger generations, and half of the Berliner Philharmoniker cellists are said to be his students.

As for the guidance of young musicians, he is the artistic director of the summer music festival “Kissingen Summer”, which is held mainly in Bad Kissingen, northern Germany, and the professor of “Carl Flesch Academy” in Baden-Baden.

He has been a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts since 1988. Until his later years he continued to play with two sisters, Ursula on the piano and Marianne on the violin.

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