The cellist Nathaniel Rosen gained American recognition upon winning the 1977 International Naumburg Competition, and international stardom the following year when he became the only American cellist ever to win the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky International Competition. Since then, he has been the esteemed guest soloist with the world’s foremost orchestras. He began studying the cello at the age of six with Eleonore Schoenfeld in his native California. Seven years later he met the legendary Gregor Piatigorsky, who soon became his teacher and mentor. At seventeen, Nathaniel Rosen toured the Soviet Union as a finalist in the Third International Tchaikovsky Competition, where he was the youngest of the 42 competing cellists, and one of three Americans to win a prize. He returned to Moscow twelve years later (1978) and, with violinist Elmar Oliveira, they became the first Gold Medal-winning American instrumentalists since Van Cliburn (1958).
For two seasons he served as principal cellist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. As principal cellist of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, he gave the première performances of Robert Linn’s Fantasia for Cello and Chamber Orchestra. In 1988, with the violinist Elmar Oliveira, he gave the world première performances of Ezra Laderman’s Concerto for Violin and Cello, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the two soloists’ Gold Medal victories at the Tchaikovsky Competition. Nathaniel Rosen served as Artistic Director of the Interlochen Summer Chamber Music Series and is a founding member of the Sitka Summer Music Festival. His recordings include the Cello Sonatas of Brahms, Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Bach’s Cello Suites, and works by Shostakovich, Granados, Falla, Popper, and Saint-Saëns, among others.
He teaches at the Manhattan School of Music, and holds the Chauncey Devereux Stillman Chair for Distinguished Visiting Artist at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. He plays a 1738 Montagnana cello.
