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Truls Mørk’s compelling performances, combining fierce intensity, integrity and grace, have established him as one of the pre-eminent cellists of our time.
Truls Mørk’s compelling performances, combining fierce intensity, integrity and grace, have established him as one of the pre-eminent cellists of our time.
He is a celebrated artist who performs with the most distinguished orchestras including the Orchestre de Paris, Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker, Philharmonia and London Philharmonic orchestras and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In North America he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. Conductor collaborations include Mariss Jansons, David Zinman, Manfred Honeck, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Christoph Eschenbach, amongst others.
During the 2019/20 season engagements include the Boston and Cleveland Orchestras, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra with performances at the Barbican Hall, London and at the Alte Oper, Frankfurt. Truls Mørk will give the Japanese premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s cello concerto with the Philharmonia, conducted by the composer, following highly successful performances last season at the Royal Festival Hall, Lincoln Center and the Festival d’Aix en Provence. In collaboration with Klaus Makela, he will also perform the Salonen cello concerto with the Philharmonique de Radio France and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra.
This season Truls Mørk will be Artist in Residence with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra which will feature the world premiere of Victoria Borisova-Ollas’ cello concerto conducted by Cristian Măcelaru. Further performances of the concerto are programmed with the Bergen Philharmonic under Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Vasily Petrenko and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano. A great champion of contemporary music, Truls Mørk has given in excess of 30 premieres. These include Rautavaara’s Towards the Horizon with the BBC Symphony Orchestra/John Storgårds, Pavel Haas’ Cello Concerto with Wiener Philharmoniker/Jonathan Nott, Krzysztof Penderecki's Concerto for Three Cellos with the NHK Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit and Hafliði Hallgrímsson's Cello Concerto, co-commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony and Scottish Chamber orchestras.
Truls Mørk continues to give regular recitals at major venues and festivals throughout the world. He has recently developed a collaboration with Behzod Abduraimov with highly successful tours in both the US and Europe. In 2020 they will perform Beethoven, Franck and Prokofiev at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Paris and at Kings Place, London, and in autumn 2019 they will record together.
With an impressive recording output, Truls Mørk has recorded many of the great cello concertos for labels such as Virgin Classics, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Ondine, Arte Nova and Chandos many of which have won international awards including Gramophone, Grammy, Midem and ECHO Klassik awards. These include Dvořák’s Concerto (Mariss Jansons/Oslo Philharmonic), Britten's Cello Symphony and Elgar's Concerto (Sir Simon Rattle/CBSO), Miaskovsky Concerto and Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante (Paavo Järvi/CBSO), Dutilleux (Myung-Whun Chung/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France), CPE Bach (Bernard Labadie/Les Violons du Roy), Haydn's Concertos (Iona Brown/Norwegian Chamber Orchestra), Rautavaara’s Towards the Horizon (John Storgårds/Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra) as well as the complete Bach Cello Suites and Britten Cello Suites. His most recent recordings include Shostakovich’s Concertos with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko, works for cello and orchestra by Massenet with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Neeme Järvi and the Saint-Saëns Concertos together with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Neeme Järvi.
Initially taught by his father, Truls Mørk continued his studies with Frans Helmerson, Heinrich Schiff and Natalia Schakowskaya. In his early career he won a number of competitions such as the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition (1982), Cassado Cello Competition in Florence (1983), the Unesco Prize at the European Radio-Union competition in Bratislava (1983) and the Naumberg Competition in New York (1986).
