orn almost three decades ago into a household filled with music, I must say I was lucky enough not to have been pressured at an early age into making music too soon. Instead I heard my mother's beautiful voice in practice as well as in performance, interrupted jealously by my father's quartet rehearsals, heard as a toddler outside of the church, where Karajan always loved to record, all the sessions for Wagner's "Ring der Nibelungen" (that's perhaps why I am not his biggest fan) and sat through several other operas and concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, of which my father is a member of since 1966. When I was four years old my Dad tried to make me play the violin, an experiment which failed miserably, not only with me but with all of my four younger siblings. Frustrated by our father's perfect command of his instrument, all of us got started with the piano which I still think is the best way to "meet" music in practice. And one day, my sister Manon had just begun the violin-experiment, my mother asked me if I was interested in playing another instrument besides the piano - how about the cello? To get her out of my face, 9-year old Me agreed, and my mother claims now that she could have named any instrument and I would have taken it on.

Although I didn't think so at the time, I must admit now that I was very lucky again with the choice of teachers from the very beginning. On the piano as well as on the cello I had with Wolfgang Saschowa and Markus Nyikos two musicians who taught me the basics of my instruments, of practicing and of music in general. The luckiest part of the beginning of my musicianship was the encouragement of my parents to work independently instead of being my second pair of ears. I was the the opposite of a child prodigy, went to school like everybody else, but I had one very useful talent: I had excellent concentration which made me, in spite of a rather normal intelligence, a very good student. I finished High School one year early with the goal of being able to focus faster on my two instruments which already used up most of the day. Still, I was able to become a big sports fan (actively as a 1000m-runner with one German Youth-Championship, passively until today a soccer- and basketball-lover) and an obsessive reader of Russian novels (especially Dostoyevsky).

My first public concert was on Feb.22 1987 in the "Berliner Philharmonie", playing with an awful little chamber orchestra Haydn's D major concerto. That means, I was almost 18 playing for the first time with orchestra. Why do I remember this date? I don't know, perhaps because on this day the hockey team of Berlin got into the First National League? Well, at least my father says now, that the news of this fact made me play better. Sad but true. This concert didn't change anything in my dreams in wanting to become a member of my fathers orchestra. A career as soloist didn't even tempt me, since I wanted to have children and be a good father, besides the fact that I was not good enough by then. I started my studies in Berlin, went to Cincinnati for a year of intense chamber Music with the LaSalle and Tokyo quartets, and finally found in Boris Pergamenschikov the teacher I needed to improve one of my weaker spots: sound and projection. With his help I improved them and managed to win some competitions, national as well as international, which gave me the chance to start performing on a more regular basis. The national competition provided me with tons of little recitals which made me realize that this is what I would love to do. Whatever stage, I loved to be on it and wanted to give the people everything at once, immediately.

A manager had even taken me on before any "official recognition", which was rather daring but sweet from this man, and sooner than I could think I was having a little bit of a career. Sooner than planned came as well the big decision if to join an orchestra or not, since the principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonics was retiring early. My childhood dream was right there, but against my fathers and his colleagues advice I did not take the audition for the job. Not out of arrogance, neither the fear to loose, but rather the knowledge of my own laziness convinced me that at 23 I was too young to be set up for life. I felt I could still work much more and continue to try reaching my limits, which moved every day further and further away (they unfortunately still do), but that, once sitting in one of the great orchestras of this world and earning very good money, I would because of my own bad character stop fighting and working on myself. Besides that, I had just discovered the joy of this incredible freedom as a free-lancing soloist, and I did not want to give it up sooner than necessary. I got lucky again, won a little bigger competition in the States, fell in love with a woman and a city and moved to New York.