German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt is one of the most sought after and versatile artists today. As a soloist, conductor, and artistic director, he performs repertoire spanning from early music to the contemporary, playing on period and modern instruments.

Nicolas Altstaedt was Artist in Focus at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt and Artist in Residence at the SWR Symphonieorchester with Teodor Currentzis in 2019/20. Other recent highlights included concerto debuts with the Detroit and Washington’s National symphony orchestras, NHK and Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, a tour with B’Rock and René Jacobs. During the 17/18 season, Nicolas gave the highly acclaimed Finnish Premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto under the baton of the composer at the Helsinki Festival and was “Artist in Spotlight” at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Season 21/22 includes debuts with the London and Munich Philharmonic, Bayrische Rundfunk, RAI Torino, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, National Orchestra of Spain and tours with l’Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and Philippe Herreweghe as well as the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and Dmitri Slobodeniouk and reinvitation to the Rotterdam Philharmonic and NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Nicolas Altstaedt performs regularly with the most renowned orchestras around the world, including the Vienna Philharmonic and Symphoniker, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, OPRF and ONF Paris, and all BBC orchestras with conductors such as Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Roger Norrington, Lahav Shani, Francois-Xavier Roth, Robin Ticciati as well as with orchestras of historical performance practice such as “Il Giardino Armonico” under Giovanni Antonini, Andrea Marcon and Jonathan Cohen.

As a conductor, he works closely with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and conducted in recent seasons the SWR, OPRF Paris, Aurora and Munich chamber orchestras.

Joint appearances and with composers such as Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Thomas Larcher, Fazil Say and Sofia Gubaidulina also consolidate his reputation as an outstanding interpreter of contemporary music.
Sebastian Fagerlund, Helena Winkelman and Fazil Say have recently written concertos; Jörg Widmann and Wolfgang Rihm works for cello and voice for Nicolas.