Philipp Schupelius

Philipp Schupelius is an award-winning cellist and has already delighted audiences as a soloist and chamber musician on numerous European stages. 

In August 2023, Philipp Schupelius won the German Music Competition in Bonn. The prize includes a CD recording on the Leipzig label GENUIN. Other highlights of 2023 included the performance of the unusual work "Fire and Water" by Chinese composer Tan Dun with the Thuringian Philharmonic Orchestra, several concerts at the Festival Radio France in and around Montpellier and the memorial concert on the 50th anniversary of Pablo Casals' death in the Beethovenhaus, Bonn. In fall 2023, he will be a guest of the London Cello Society for the first time. His debut CD recorded at the Beethoven House in Bonn: "Pau! A Tribute to Casals" was released in September 2023. Philipp Schupelius musically intensively explored the world of ideas of the cellist of the century and peace activist Pablo Casals, the 50th anniversary of whose death was celebrated in 2023. 

Philipp Schupelius received the Discovery Award from the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) at the age of 17. He recently received the Boris Pergamenschikow Grant in October 2022 and the Fanny Mendelssohn Prize in the same month. He was also awarded the First Great Award of the Manhattan Music Competition at the end of 2021 and the Silver Medal of the Eurovision Young Musicians Contest in 2022. He is a multiple first prize winner of Jugend musiziert.

Born in Berlin in 2003, Philipp received his first cello lessons from Ulrich Voss in Berlin at the age of eight. In 2017, he made his debut with Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations and the Bergische Symphoniker; the concert was broadcast by WDR. Since then, Philipp has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on numerous European stages, including Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto with the Stuttgart Symphony Orchestra in Rutesheim and in the main hall of the Berlin Philharmonie, and Haydn's C major Concerto at the Casals Forum in Kronberg and the Graz Opera, among others. He has performed with Daniel Hope (violin) and Philip Dukes (viola) at venues including the Frauenkirche in Dresden, the Beethovenhaus in Bonn and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. In 2022, Philipp played a recital at Carnegie Hall in New York for the first time.

Philipp was able to learn from exceptional musicians, first and foremost, of course, from Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, whose student he has been for six years. He also received important advice from Justin Pearson, Daniel Hope and Anssi Karttunen. His participation in the Menuhin String Academy in Gstaad with Ivan Monighetti in 2018 was also essential. In masterclasses, he was able to get to know the exceptional cellists Lynn Harrell and Wolfgang Boettcher. He also received lessons from Jens Peter Maintz, Daniel Geiss and Frans Helmerson as part of masterclasses.

The Hoelzer v. Borcke Music Foundation has supported Philipp since 2020. He was also a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein and the Jürgen Ponto Foundation. Since October 2021, he has been playing together with pianist Ron Huang for Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now, Berlin.

During the Kronberg Academy Cello Masterclasses in 2022, he was awarded the Boris Pergamenschikow Scholarship. He has been studying at Kronberg Academy with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt since October 2022. His studies are funded by the Sodalitas patronage.