Cellist Nicholas Burkel was born in New York and studied cello there with Julia Lichten and Marion Feldman. From August 2020 to July 2022, he studied in Oslo with Torleif Thedéen and is currently in the class of Thomas Grossenbacher at the Zurich University of the Arts, where he studies the Specialized Masters Degree in Orchestral Performance.
Nicholas has gained much experience as a musician along the way in orchestral playing, as a soloist, and in chamber music settings. He has worked with the Kronos Quartet, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, amongst others.
In the fall of 2017, he played in residence at the Shanghai Cello Festival, and in 2018 Nicholas had the opportunity to be a member of the first prize-winning quartet in the Ruth Widder String Quartet Competition, which led to a recital in New York later that year.
His debut recital of the Saint-Saens Concerto at Carnegie Hall was described as “distinguished by an effervescent temperament, well-articulated bow strokes … “.
In the 2022/23 season he is the academist in the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra as well as a Trainee in the Opernhaus Zürich and a scholarship holder of the Villa Musica Stiftung in Germany.
Nicholas plays an exceptionally fine sounding cello by the contemporary American maker, Kevin Chapin.
