Leonhard Roczek

Senior Lecturer for chamber music⋅Department String Studies⋅Institute for Chamber Music

Leonhard Roczek has been the cellist of the Minetti Quartet for 20 years , with whom he has performed worldwide and released numerous critically acclaimed CD recordings. In addition to his intensive chamber music activities, he also appears as a soloist, orchestral musician, composer, arranger and pedagogue. Since 2014 he has taught chamber music at the Mozarteum University, and since 2022 he has been head of the Department for String and Plucked Instruments.

Leonhard Roczek was born into a family of musicians in Salzburg in 1983 and received his artistic training from Heidi Litschauer, Clemens Hagen and Valentin Erben. At a young age he was a multiple prizewinner at the cello competitions in Liezen, Gorizia and Gradus ad Parnassum, and received a scholarship from the Thyll-Dürr Foundation. He is a founding member of the Minetti Quartet, with whom he has given concerts in North and South America, Japan, China, Australia and many European music centers such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, Konserthuset Stockholm, Wigmore Hall London etc plays. He is also a regular guest at renowned chamber music festivals such as the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Salzburg Mozart Week, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schleswig-Holstein, Aldeburgh, and Aix-en-Provence, where he performs with chamber music partners such as Fazil Say, Paul Meyer, Jörg Widmann, Martin Fröst, Sharon Kam, Sarah Willis, Lars Anders Tomter, István Várdai and Alois Posch perform. He received essential artistic impulses from Ferenc Rados, Alfred Brendel, Anner Bylsma, Johannes Meissl, as well as members of the Alban Berg Quartet, Amadeus Quartet, Artemis Quartet and Hagen Quartet. In addition to his intensive work in the string quartet, Leonhard Roczek also dedicates himself to the piano trio and the duo with piano (currently recording CDs with sonatas for cello and piano "around Mozart") and is a member of the cello sextet CelloVersum. He regularly performs as a soloist with symphony and chamber orchestras (RSO Vienna, Graz Philharmonic, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Philharmonie Salzburg, Radio Symphony Orchestra Tirana), gains experience in the orchestra (Vienna Philharmonic, Camerata Salzburg), and has been a composer since his youth , rock musician (Metaphysis, Genuine Aspect) and arranger (colophonists). He has given masterclasses for cello and chamber music in Spain (Conde Duque Madrid), Sweden (Musikhögskolan Ingesund), Finland (Kuhmo Festival), Canada (McGill University), Mexico (Sonoro Festival), and in the USA (University of Northern Iowa, Colorado). State University, Utah State University). He has been teaching chamber music at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg since 2014 - an activity that has become increasingly important in his artistic work in recent years and is reflected in the success of his students in competitions and invitations to concerts and festivals (including the Salzburg Festival ) reflects. In 2022 he was appointed head of the department for stringed and plucked instruments. Leonhard Roczek plays a cello by Giovanni Tononi (Bologna, 1681), on loan from the Austrian National Bank.

A triumph and an event. These four young musicians play Mendelssohn as only the best of the very good can.

— Eleonore Buening, FAZ

Joseph Haydn (Debut CD):
"It's been a long time since we've seen so many exciting things and so many good things on a new CD."
(KlassikInfo) Felix Mendelssohn:
"A triumph and an event. These four young musicians play Mendelssohn so enchantingly transparent and with flawless contours, both dramatic and sharp, full of light but with depth as only the best of the very good can."
(Eleonore Büning in the FAZ of September 13, 2012) Ludwig van Beethoven:
"Uncompromising, but completely unemotional, the intonation flawless, the technical superiority admirable. The urgency of her playing deliberately avoids the mere beautiful sound, but also celebrates his high-spirited joy in combinatorial play - and thus hits the human core of this music."
(BR-Klassik) Franz Schubert:
"The Minetti Quartet seems to float effortlessly and redeemed above things. An impressive anniversary album, on which the quiet tones are the important ones."
(BR Classic)