“The glory of this issue, however, is cellist Nadège Rochat’s performance. She captures the improvisatory character of her first entry superbly and her memorably sweet tone is ideally suited to Dvorak’s near-vocal lvricism..“
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Nadège Rochat is a distinguished voice among the young cellists of her generation. Her approach to performing well-known cello masterpieces combined with her appeal towards new compositions has immersed a wide range of styles over the years. She both sheds light on lesser known past works and is inspired by traditional world music and its interpreters.
Highlights of season 22/23 and 23/24 included her debut in the Palau de la Música Catalana where she performed with the Franz Schubert Filharmonia. In a trio with Soyoung Yoon and Judith Jauregui, she played her debut in the Auditorio Nacional de Musica and the Auditorio de Zaragoza. Also her return to the stage with the Bochumer Symphoniker under conductor Joseph Bastian, as well as in the Dortmunder Konzerthaus with Kammerorchester of the Nationaltheater Prag. She had a successful debut collaboration with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, recording a new cello concerto by the Portuguese composer Nuno Corte-Real.
Nadège Rochat has performed in the Tonhalle Zürich, Vienna’s Musikverein, Konzerthaus Berlin, Carnegie Hall, The Palau de la Musica Catalana, the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the KKL in Luzern, the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico and the Victoria Hall in Geneva amongst others, and has worked with orchestras such as the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Weimar, The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Dortmunder Philharmoniker, Yuri Bashmet and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Norddeutsche Rundfunk (NDR), the Bochumer Symphoniker, the Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse. She has appeared in the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele, the Cello Unwrapped Festival in London and the Cervantino Festival in Mexico, among others.
In duo with Spanish guitarist Rafael Aguirre, Rochat performs Spanish and Latin-American repertoire which is documented on their well received CD, “La Vida breve”. In 2022, they premiered the double concerto for cello and guitar “Fulgores,” which was re-written for them by Lorenzo Palomo. Her first CD with the Württembergische Philharmonie and Ola Rudner featured the first cello concertos of Edouard Lalo and Darius Milhaud.
Her critically acclaimed “Cello Abbey”, recorded with Staatskapelle Weimar under Paul Meyer includes the cello concertos of W. Walton and E. Elgar, as well as the first performance of Ina Boyle’s never performed “Elegy.” In her most recent CD “Dvorak-Caplet”, she performs the Dvorak Concerto and the Epiphanie by André Caplet together with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Nadège Rochat was born into a musical family in Geneva. She later studied in Cologne with Maria Kliegel and attended masterclasses with Heinrich Schiff and Anner Bijlsma among others before graduating from the Royal Academy of Music under Robert Cohen where she is now a professor. She plays a cello by Amati « Ex-Vatican » (1620) on generous loan by the Academia de Arte de Florencia.
