Prof. Imke Frank,

Imke Frank, born in Stuttgart, was enthusiastic about music of all kinds from an early age. So it was only natural that, in addition to the baroque, classical and romantic cello repertoire, she was also interested in contemporary music. The opportunity to work with contemporary composers as a child was very formative for her understanding of music. This insight into the creative processes of compositions gave her a deep understanding of the vitality of music from all eras. Through her teachers Boris Pergamenschikow in Cologne and Heinrich Schiff and Thomas Demenga in Basel, she acquired a broad palette of technical and musical possibilities, supplemented by many impulses in chamber music studies with Walter Levin and studies on the baroque cello in Basel and Paris.
Imke Frank has received scholarships from the DAAD, the Migros-Genossenschaftsbund, the Sandoz Stif-tung, the Künstlerhaus Lukas in Ahrenshoop and has been awarded numerous prizes in competitions.
She performs as a soloist in Europe and Asia and her chamber music activities have taken her to venues including the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wigmore Hall in London, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Tonhalle Zurich and numerous festivals worldwide.
Her chamber music partners there have included musicians such as Patricia Kopatschinskaya, Isabelle van Keulen, Daniel Sepec, David Geringas, Garth Knox, Sara Maria Sun, Karl Leister and Kor-nelia Kalisch. Imke Frank performs regularly with her string trio "Le tre C'", the cello duo Frank/Schucan and the quartet of the Collegium Novum Zurich.
Imke Frank is a member of the Collegium Novum Zurich and has played there under the direction of Pierre Boulez, Sylvain Cambreling, Emilio Pomarico, Pablo Heras-Casado, Enno Poppe, Titus Engel and Jonathan Stockhammer. For many years she was principal cellist with the Camerata Bern, where she performed with Thomas Zehtmeier, Anna Chumachenko, Antje Weithaas and Tabea Zimmermann, among others. Imke Frank has been a welcome substitute solo cellist with the Kammerphilharmonie Graubünden, the Montreux Festival Orchestra, the Camerata Zürich, the Sinfonietta Basel and the Ensemble Resonanz. She is deputy solo cellist in the orchestra of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck.
Imke Frank was a professor at the Landeskonservatorium in Feldkirch (A) from 2001 to 2015. She currently teaches at the Lübeck University of Music.
Collaboration with composers such as Heinz Holliger, Enno Poppe, Sasha Dragicevic, Si-mon Steen-Andersen, Marc André, Georges Aperghis, Emanuel Nunes and Lucia Ronchetti, to name but a few, continues to be a central aspect of the cellist's musical work. Countless performances and premieres have been initiated and inspired by her, so her desire to convey the vitality of modern music is central to her work. Imke Frank does not see her interest in contemporary music as a contradiction to her preoccupation with early music, but as a useful counterpart. The cellist demonstrates this in her solo programs, in which she interprets not only the latest compositions but also music from the 17th and 18th centuries on historical instruments. Due to this broad spectrum, Imke Frank was appointed artistic director of the municipal concert series "Musikpodium Zürich" in Zurich in 2011, which she organized until 2014.