Cello Hebraico

Walter-Michael Vollhardt cello and Roglit Ishay piano play Jewish-inspired compositions for cello and piano, as well as for cello solo by composers Ernst Bloch, Paul Ben Haim, Birger, Lukas Foss, Volker David Kirchner, Srul Glick, Fredric Kroll and Granville Bantock.

Born in Heidelberg, Walter-Michael Volllhardt studied with Paul Tortelier at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen, with David Geringas at the Musikhochschule in Hamburg and with Leslie Parnas at Boston University in the USA as a scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes and the DAAD. There he won the Concerto Aria competition and subsequently made his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Arthur Fiedler. Walter-Michael Vollhardt is also highly committed to teaching, with a particular focus on disadvantaged young talent in developing countries in Latin America and Africa. In 2014, he was appointed permanent guest conductor of the MUSON Symphony Orchestra in Lagos.

The Israeli pianist Roglit Ishay has performed as a soloist with the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, the Scottish BBC and the Mannheim National Theatre Orchestra, among others, under the baton of conductors such as Giuseppe Sinopoli, Herbert Blomstedt, Lothar Zagrosek, Martyn Brabbins, Jun Märkl, Ilan Volkov and Martin Fischer-Dieskau. In 2011, she was appointed Professor of Piano Chamber Music at the College of Music in Freiburg. She gives masterclasses in Germany, China, England and Israel. Roglit Ishay studied piano with Madeleine and Walter Aufhäuser, Veronica Jochum and Richard Goode and philosophy at Tel Aviv University.