cello & piano
BIOGRAPHY
“What these two musicians had to offer was from the very first note simply breathtaking: (…) here predominated a complete chamber music rapport which was combined with a profound and highly intelligent understanding of the works. This combination had to result in a pinnacle of achievement.” (General-Anzeiger Bonn, 8th of May 2018, on the concert in Beethovenhaus Bonn on May 6, 2018)
Anouchka and Katharina Hack, cello and piano, have been enlivening stages in Germany and Europe with their musical freshness and passion for several years, both as soloists and as a duo, including the Beethovenhaus Bonn, Gasteig Munich, Fondation Louis Vuitton Paris and Konzerthaus Dortmund.
In addition to concert tours in Europe and the USA, the sisters have given concerts at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the lunch concerts of the Berlin Philharmonic and the WDR chamber concerts. Radio recordings were made with NDR, Radio Classique (FR) and medici.tv.
As soloists, Anouchka & Katharina Hack recently performed the Suite concertante for cello, piano and orchestra by Théodore Dubois together with the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra and Ulrich Kern.
Since 2021, they have been artistic directors of the meetMUSIC Festival in Mettingen, which takes place annually in August.
Current engagements include recitals at the Rising Stars series at Stadtcasino Basel, at Orchesterzentrum Dortmund, live on NDR Extra, and at the Beethovenfest Bonn. Recent performances comprised concerts at the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, concerts in France, Switzerland and Italy.
The duo's first album with works by Dimitri Shostakovich was released by GENUIN classics in 2020 and was nominated for the German Record Critics' Prize and the Opus Klassik. In addition to sonatas by Shostakovich, it contains an encore with cellist Gautier Capuçon.
Their new album "Alle Menschen werden Schwestern" is released in autumn 2024 in cooperation with Deutschlandfunk on the renowned Berlin Classics label.
Cellist Anouchka Hack (*1996), winner of the Prix Jean-Nicolas Firmenich at the 2021 Verbier Festival and the Special Prize of the German Foundation for Musical Life at the 2023 German Music Competition, can be heard as a soloist with the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn, the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, the Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra and the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, among others. Anouchka Hack recently played Weinberg's Preludes at the Konzerthaus Dortmund and Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations at the Laeiszhalle Hamburg. She was a guest chamber musician at the Rheingau Music Festival. In 2022, Anouchka Hack was awarded the Leyda Ungerer Music Prize.
She has performed with Gautier Capuçon on a chamber music tour in venues such as Victoria Hall Geneva and the Vienna Konzerthaus, with further concerts to follow in 2025 at Wigmore Hall London and the Philharmonie Paris. She is currently giving further chamber music concerts together with Tabea Zimmermann, Viviane Hagner and Daniel Müller-Schott, among others.
Anouchka Hack was a "debut" artist at the Nikolaisaal Potsdam from 2019 to 2022 and has been a regular guest with solo performances and recitals.
She is currently studying at the renowned Kronberg Academy with Frans Helmerson.
As a prizewinner of the German Musical Instrument Fund, Anouchka Hack plays a Bartolomeo Tassini cello from 1769 and is a scholarship holder of the Mozart Society Dortmund and the German Foundation for Musical Life.
Pianist Katharina Hack (*1994) is the winner of the Steinway Furtherance Prize and performs as a soloist and in recitals. She is particularly dedicated to the works of Frédéric Chopin.
This season, as in the previous season, she is playing a concert tour with piano recitals in numerous German cities; duo concerts recently took her to the Laeiszhalle Hamburg and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, among others.
In October 2024, she will perform Chopin's second piano concerto at the Berlin Philharmonie. In November 2022, she performed Grieg's piano concerto at the Cologne Philharmonie and gave a solo recital at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival 2022. Together with violinist Fedor Rudin and clarinettist Zilvinas Brazauskas, she made her debut in the Elbphilharmonie's main hall in October 2022. She has recently performed as a soloist with the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn and the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra, among others.
As a versatile chamber musician, Katharina Hack has performed at the Engadin Festival and the Buxtehude International Music Festival, among others.
She is studying for her concert exam with Bernd Glemser at the Würzburg University of Music, where she also worked as an assistant for chamber music; she received further important artistic impulses at masterclasses with Bernd Goetzke, Sir Andras Schiff and Andrzej Jasinski. Katharina Hack is a scholarship holder of the German Foundation for Musical Life and the Artur and Lieselotte Dumcke Foundation.