From early childhood Greco-German 20 year old cellist, Alexander Wollheim, had a great interest and joy in making and composing music. At the age of 4, he started his musical education with piano and violin lessons as well as training in voice and theory at the Berlin State and Cathedral Choir. Three years later, he started studying the cello with Wayne Foster-Smith, who remained his main teacher for 10 years.
From October 2017, Alexander has been an undergraduate cello performance under Prof. Danjulo Ishizaka at the Universität der Künste Berlin and he has also taken up a degree in Historical and Contemporary Compositional Technique with Prof. Sebastian Stier at the Hochschule für Musik „Hanns Eisler“ Berlin which he is studying simultaneously.
To complement and expand his musical education, Alexander has participated in master classes with Prof. Ulrich Voss, Angelos Liakakis, Valentin Radutiu and Prof. Troels Svane, as well as Prof. Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt at the Cello Akademie Rutesheim.
Alexander is an avid chamber musician and has been active in numerous groups in his hometown of Berlin as well as internationally. In March of 2019 he played works by Schumann and Fauré at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center in Athens, also sharing the stage for some cello ensemble performances with the principal cellists of the Thessaloniki and Athens State Orchestras as well as Prof. Matias de Oliveira Pinto. Since 2019 he has been a scholarship holder with Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Berlin e.V.
With musical partners such as Korean pianist Jay Myung, he has been exploring works outside of the standard repertoire: since first playing together in 2018, the duo have performed sonatas by Erwin Schulhoff und Bohuslav Martinů at events such as the concert series "Slow Listening" at the HfM Berlin. Their collaboration was quick to bear fruit - in October of 2018 they participated in the International Competition for Ostracized Music in Schwerin and were awarded first prize. In July of 2019, they gave a debut concert playing sonatas by Schnittke and Franck among others at the festival „Musikalischer Sommer in Ostfriesland“, and in November of the same year, they went on a concert tour in Spain, playing in Leon, Madrid and Valencia.
As a soloist, Alexander was awarded the second prize at the XIV. Gabriellli-Competition at the Berlin University of the Arts in October of 2019.
