Danish Cellist Erling Blöndal Bengtsson Celebrates 80th Birthday
Students and colleagues from throughout the world to perform at birthday concert
He’s a larger than life figure in Scandinavian culture. Indeed, a larger-than-life bronze statue of Copenhagen-born cellist Erling Blöndal Bengtsson stands in front of Reykjavik´s University Concert hall in Iceland’s capital city. On March 8, cellists, including many past students, will gather from around the world at a concert to celebrate Bengtsson’s 80th birthday.
A commemorative CD will be released to mark the occasion.
Bengtsson studied with Fritz Dietzmann, principal cellist of the Royal Danish Opera Orchestra. At the age of 16, he was accepted at the Curtis Institute and at suggestion of the violinist Adolf Busch, placed under the tutelage of cello legend Gregor Piatigorsky, who regarded the then-young Danish cellist to be a model student.
Bengtsson went on to become a celebrated cellist, performing from memory the great works of the cello literature, but also commissioning new works. He amassed an impressive discography. In a recent article in The Strad, the cellist Jeffrey Solow recalled that Henry Roth wrote of Bengtsson’s “immaculate” playing: “Irrespective of what he plays there is a sense of elegance, impeccable technique, silvery tonal timbre, a full range of expressive subtleties, and imaginative phrasing—all conceived in the spirit of the composer.”
He also earned a reputation as a sought-after teacher, spending 37 years at the Royal Conservatory in Copenhagen, 20 years at the Music School of the Swedish Radio in Stockholm, and four years at the Musikhochschule in Cologne, Germany.
From 1990 to 2006, he served on the faculty of the University of Michigan.
From Iceland, his mother´s birthplace, he was awarded the Grand Knight of the Order of the Falcon.
He is member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and has been awarded the English Hyam Morrison Gold Medal for Cello. In 1993, he was honored with the title “Chevalier du Violoncelle” by Indiana University, School of Music, Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center.
“I heard him give a recital around 20 years ago in Ann Arbor, and sat there with my mouth open,” Michael Haber, a former member of the Cleveland Orchestra and a former student of Piatigorsky’s, recently told Solow. "He played the Kodaly: I had the impression he was as great a master of the instrument as Mr. [Janos] Starker.
“Yes, he was one of the greats.”
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