Music arises from a sense of fulfillment. Julian Steckel plays like someone who has something to share. “As an interpreter, I trust my inner landscape more and more and allow the audience to enter it. It is a vulnerability that ultimately makes one stronger,” says Julian Steckel in 2018, the birth year of his first daughter. His power of conviction has grown, and his own images have become richer.

After winning the ARD Music Competition in 2010, Julian Steckel’s solo career took off. Since then, he has performed with the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. He has worked with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Roger Norrington, Valery Gergiev, Jakub Hrůša, Mario Venzago, Fabien Gabel, John Storgårds, Lahav Shani, Antony Hermus, Christian Zacharias, and Michael Sanderling. In the field of chamber music, his partners have included and still include Janine Jansen, Christian Tetzlaff, Antje Weithaas, Renaud Capuçon, Veronika Eberle, Vilde Frang, Sharon Kam, Antoine Tamestit, Lars Vogt, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Paul Rivinius, Denis Kozhukhin, and the Modigliani, Armida, and Ébène quartets.

When Steckel talks about past stations and encounters, one can sense that he is not driven by external expectations, but rather trusts an organic growth that has led him to important partners, works, and concerts.

Last season, Julian Steckel made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Iván Fischer, as well as with the Yomiuri Orchestra Tokyo, where he performed Akio Yashiro’s cello concerto. Further concert tours took him across Europe and to New Zealand. In September 2024, Julian Steckel will open the Dvořák Festival Prague with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Jakob Hrusa. Solo and chamber music concerts will also take him to Japan, Korea, and China, as well as to Leipzig (Gewandhaus), Berlin (Boulezsaal), Copenhagen, Düsseldorf, and many other places.

 Chamber music remains a source of inspiration and a communicative breeding ground for him. In the coming years he will be performing together with Antje Weithaas, Sharon Kam, Enrico Pace, Martin Helmchen and Nils Mönkemeyer amongst others