Prof. Frans Helmersson

Frans Helmerson, Swedish cellist, studied with Guido Vecchi, Guiseppe Selmi and Prof. William Pleeth in Gothenburg, Rome and London. Frans Helmerson gained further insights from Mstislav Rostropovich. Numerous appearances with renowned orchestras conducted by Seiji Ozawa, Colin Davis, Neeme Järvi, Evgeni Svetlanov, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Herbert Blomstedt, Sergiu Comissiona, Frühbeck de Burgos, Kurt Sanderling and Mstislav Rostropovich on tours of Europe, the USA, South America, Asia and Australia. Additional performances as conductor. In the realm of chamber music, 1994-2001 artistic director of the Korsholm Music Festival in Finland and participant in many international chamber music festivals, including Verbier, Prades, Naantali, Kuhmo and Ravinia. 2002 founded the Michelangelo String Quartet with Michaela Martin, Stephan Picard and Nobuko Imai. CD recordings of works by Antonín Dvořák, Dmitri Schostakovitch, and Johannes Brahms’ double concerto with the violinist Michaela Martin, as well as the suites for solo cello by Johann Sebastian Bach. From winter semester 2011/12 guest professor for cello at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin.

June 2011