Highly virtuosic, passionate and technically brilliant, German cellist Raphael Gromes captivates audiences with her versatile and effortless playing. She is the recipient of several awards including First Prize at both the Richard Strauss Competition (2012) and Concorso Fiorindo Turin (2016), as well as the German Music Competition Prize (2015).
As a concerto soloist, Raphaela performs the main cello repertoire alongside, and often in combination with, lesser-known works by women composers following her long-term research at the Frau und Werk Archive in Frankfurt where she has uncovered a number of musical gems by Victoria Yagling, Matilde Capuis, Marie Jaëll, Henriëtte Bosmans amongst others. Orchestras she has performed with include HR Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Tonkünstlerorchester, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Nurnberg Symphoniker, Saarländisches Staatstheater Saarbrücken, Norddeutsche Philharmonie and the Belgian National Orchestra under conductors such as Roberto Gonzalez-Monjas, Michael Sanderling, Pietari Inkinen, Ari Rasilainen, Matthew Halls, Nicholas Carter, Jan Willem de Vriend, Aziz Shokhakimov, Anna Rakitina, Christoph Poppen and Marcus Bosch. Future engagements include tours with the Festival Strings Lucerne and the Prague Symphony Orchestra.
She has been an exclusive artist with Sony Classical since 2016 having made six recordings on the label. Her albums are distinguished by creative programming and an explorative spirit and have received many awards including the German Record Critics’ Award, an Opus Klassik and Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (Offenbach) and Diapason Nouveauté (Strauss Sonatas). An advocate of works by female composers, her most recent double album FEMMES features works by 23 outstanding female composers across nine centuries of music history. Her other albums on Sony include Imagination (2021) featuring a fairy-tale compilation of works by Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn and Humperdinck, Romantic Cello Concertos (2020) featuring cello concertos by Schumann and Klengel with the Runkfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Nicholas Carter which was awarded the Diapason D’Or.
As a recitalist Raphaela Gromes made her debut at festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Interlaken, Ingolstadt, Marvao, Rheingau, Ludwigsburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and has also performed at venues such as the Tonhalle Zurich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle Hamburg, and the concert halls of Berlin, Vienna and Dortmund. Further afield she has toured to the United States, Central America, Korea and China.
Born in Munich in 1991 into a family of cellists, she studied with Peter Bruns in Leipzig from the age of 14 and continued with Wen-Sinn Yang at the Institute für Musik in Munich in 2010 and later with Reinhard Latzko at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna. Master classes followed with David Geringas, Yo-Yo Ma, Frans Helmerson, Wolfgang Boettcher, Anner Bylsma and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmid. She has held a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation since 2012 and been supported by Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now.
Raphaela Gromes plays a 1740 cello by Carlo Bergonzi, one of only three in the world and obtained for her through a private patron. She is a cultural ambassador for SOS Children's Villages worldwide and an ambassador for the José Carreras Leukemia Foundation.
