Elgar 85 Cello

Praised by the Baseler Zeitung and Bangkok Post for her „personal and captivating style“ and „polished, powerful and refined“ performance, Hitomi Niikura pursues a successful career as a soloist who with her passion has captured the hearts of audiences across the world.

Sol Gabetta has established herself as one of the most promising cellists to emerge in the first decade of the 21st century, with a substantial international career as a soloist and with a growing number of recordings. While she has drawn most attention for her performances of the standard concerto and chamber music repertoire, she has also championed contemporary works by composers as diverse as Takemitsu, Ligeti, Gubaidulina, Rihm, and Vasks.

Grammy Award winning cellist Sara Sant'Ambrogio first hit the international stage by winning the Tchaikovsky International Violoncello Competition in Russia which resulted in her Carnegie Hall debut televised nationally in the US. Since then, she has performed thousands of concerts on six continents both as a soloist and with her ensemble, the Eroica Trio. Sara has finally fulfilled her lifelong dream of recording the romantic masterpiece, Elgar Cello Concerto, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra-one of England's finest orchestras. She pairs the Elgar with a lush, new romantic cello concerto written for her by Bruce Wolosoff and her own arrangements of Astor Piazzolla's sultry Libertango and Oblivion to complete a recording designed to delight the listeners ears and linger in their souls.

Cellist Jacqueline du Pré needs little introduction to most listeners. Whether as a result of being perhaps the most prominent female cellist in the last century, her meteoric rise to fame at a young age, the equally rapid decline of her career at the hands of multiple sclerosis, or simply the incredible passion with which she performed, du Pré possessed a singular capacity to make an impression on her audiences. She was single-handedly responsible for reviving the long-dormant Elgar concerto that was to become one of her trademark pieces.

The Elgar Cello Concerto and cellist Jacqueline du Pré are inextricably linked and this 1965 EMI recording of du Pré with John Barbirolli and the London Symphony Orchestra is the first great recoding of the work the ill-fated artist was to make. Barbirolli's invitation for the 21-year-old du Pré to perform the concerto thrust her into the international spotlight and remains one of her most cherished recordings.