“Wit, aristocratic poise and elegance; mercurial shifts of mood, intensity and lightness of touch in near-miraculous balance”

– The Glasgow Herald, 18 May 2009

Internationally acclaimed since her 2004 debut with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Valery Gergiev and winner of the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award, cellist Sol Gabetta already holds several impressive awards.

Born in Cordoba, Argentina, she won her first competition at the age of ten. This was soon followed by the Natalia Gutman Award and commendations at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition as well as the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. A Grammy Award nominee, Sol Gabetta became the youngest award winner of the Aargau Kulturpreis in 2008, one of the most important arts prizes in Switzerland. She has also been awarded Argentina’s KONEX prize and, in 2010, received the renowned Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award.

Following her first ECHO Klassik Award (received in 2007 for a CD featuring works of Tchaikovsky and Ginastera) the artist obtained another one for her interpretation of cello concertos by Haydn, Hofmann and Mozart. Most recently, she was awarded her third ECHO for a celebrated recording of Elgar’s cello concerto together with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Mario Venzago. Her extensive discography encompasses also a highly acclaimed recording of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Münchner Philharmoniker.

Gabetta's performances today include appearances with leading orchestras and conductors worldwide. She has worked with Bamberger Symphoniker, hr-Sinfonieorchester, kammerorchesterbasel, Orchestre National de Radio France, and the Czech Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Philharmonic and Russian National orchestras. She has also played with the Bolshoi, Finnish Radio Symphony, The Philadelphia, Detroit Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras, plus the Orchestre National de Belgique and Orquesta Nacional de España, Gabetta is a frequent guest at festivals including Verbier, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Schwetzingen Festival, Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival, Rheingau Music Festival and Bonn Beethovenfest.

In addition to her career as a soloist, Sol Gabetta is a deeply devoted chamber musician and performs with distinguished partners such as Yo-Yo Ma, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Hélène Grimaud in famous halls such as London’s Wigmore Hall or Palau de la Musica Catalana in Barcelona. She has also founded her own chamber music festival “Solsberg” in Switzerland.

Highlights of this season include residencies at Essen Philharmonie and Berlin Konzerthaus as well as debuts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Gulbenkian Orchestra and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In France, she will be performing with the orchestras of Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg and Toulouse. She will also appear with both the Melbourne and West Australian Symphony Orchestras in Australia and embark on a large-scale tour through Europe with the BBC Philharmonic.

Thanks to a generous private stipend by the Rahn Kulturfonds, Sol Gabetta is in a position to play one of the very rare and precious cellos by G.B. Guadagnini from 1759. Sol Gabetta has taught at the Basel Music Academy since 2005.

www.solgabetta.com

The Solsberg Festival owes it uniqueness to a combination of happy circumstances, and we look forward to sharing this good fortune with you for the seventh time.

We should like to say “thank you” to the invited performers – without their idealistic commitment this programme of concerts would never have been possible. And we greatly appreciate how our musician friends devote their valuable time to our Solsberg Festival and contribute to its informal family atmosphere.

We hope that the concerts will provide you with moving and unforgettable experiences and we thank you for your loyalty and interest.

Sol Gabetta & Christoph Müller

For the Argentinian cellist Sol Gabetta – a resident of the Frick valley, Canton of Aargau, for several years now – it was a dream come true when the first Solsberg Festival was held in June 2006: making music with like-minded people in a historically impressive setting and devising exciting programmes to be played by a select group of musicians. The Solsberg Festivals to date have been enthusiastically received by public and press alike, attracting a rapidly growing number of visitors from all over Europe.

The musicians who make the Solsberg Festival special have all won major international awards. They are enjoying brilliant careers as performers and figure undoubtedly among the new generation of leading international soloists.

With this small but exquisite festival the Basel region can boast a gem in the musical landscape of Northwestern Switzerland. The baroque convent church in Olsberg and the town church of St. Martin in Rheinfelden provide incomparably dignified settings for the music festival.

Thanks to our sponsors, particularly the Main Sponsor itag AG, we are able to stage the festival under professional conditions. Alongside itag AG, the Canton of Aargau is now sponsoring the festival for the sixth time. And we are pleased to welcome the Car Sponsor AUDI and Clariant International as new co-sponsors.