New solo cello for Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra

Read more news stories here

Dutch-Swiss cellist Anton Spronk announced he has won the audition for the role of solo cello in the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in December 2023. Spronk will begin the role in March 2024.

Born in 1994, Spronk started taking cello lessons with his father Frank Spronk at the age of four, and continued his studies with Monique Bartels in Amsterdam from the age of twelve. He subsequently earned his bachelor’s degree in 2017 from the Zürich University of the Arts under the tutelage of Thomas Grossenbacher. Since then, he has been studying with Jens Peter Maintz at the University of Arts in Berlin.

At the age of 19, he was awarded the first prize as well as two special awards at the Competition of the Cello Biennale Amsterdam in 2014. In 2019 he was awarded the ‘Prix du Rotary’ at the Verbier Festival and advanced to the semifinals of the ARD Competition in Munich. In the same year, he also won the first prize, Audience Award and Orchestra Award at the International Mazzacurati Cello Competition in Turin. In 2020 he won the Kiefer-Hablitzel Competition in Bern, Switzerland and won the Dutch Classical Talent Award in 2021. He was a semi-finalist at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2022.

Spronk is the artistic director of the Eggenfelden klassisch music festival, which he founded in 2016 in collaboration with violinist Larissa Cidlinsky.

He plays a 1865 cello by J.B. Vuillaume, on loan to him by the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation.

Playing

In The Best of Technique you’ll discover the top playing tips of the world’s leading string players and teachers. It’s packed full of exercises for students, plus examples from the standard repertoire to show you how to integrate the technique into your playing.

Teaching

The Strad’s Masterclass series brings together the finest string players with some of the greatest string works ever written. Always one of our most popular sections, Masterclass has been an invaluable aid to aspiring soloists, chamber musicians and string teachers since the 1990s.

Calendars

American collector David L. Fulton amassed one of the 20th century’s finest collections of stringed instruments. This year’s calendar pays tribute to some of these priceless treasures, including Yehudi Menuhin’s celebrated ‘Lord Wilton’ Guarneri, the Carlo Bergonzi once played by Fritz Kreisler, and four instruments by Antonio Stradivari.