Biography

Cellist Josephine Bastian is a passionate recitalist, chamber musician and cello teacher. She was born in Berlin in 1995 into a family of musicians. 

Josephine has been a prize winner at various competitions, such as the Cello Competition of the Yehudi Menuhin  Live Music Now foundation (2017), at the Strings competition of the Peter Pirazzi foundation (2016), as well as being awarded a scholarship at the Frankfurt Bach Concerts. 

Since 2017, she furthermore has been accepted into the orchestral academy of the Berlin Radio Symphony orchestra for a two year fellowship. In May 2021, Josephine has been offered another fellowship at the Frankfurt Opera.

Her recording of the Rococo Variations by Tchaikovsky has been hailed by the nmz (Neue Musikzeitung) as „Bastians elegant, sensitive and effective performing style is very convincing in all passages“.

As a soloist, Josephine performed with musicians of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, with the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, the Orchestra of the CPE Bach music school Berlin and Main-Kinzig-Kammerorchester. She is a regular guest with festivals such as the Rheingau Musikfestival, the Musikmesse Festival Frankfurt, „Mein Lieblingsstück“ in the Alte Oper Frankfurt, and she performed at the Konzerthaus Berlin with the prestigious organization „Rhapsody in School“ alongside renowned artists such as Daniel Müller-Schott, Alban Gerhardt, Daniel Hope, Antoine Tamestit and Lars Vogt. 

As passionate chamber musician, she is a founding member of the CONCELLI cello quartet and has been a member of Eurus String Quartet (2019-2021) and MOSAIK Trio (2016-2023) in the past.

Josephine commenced her studies with Stefan Giglberger at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin, and continued her studies with Prof. Michael Sanderling at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt, earning her Bachelor degree in 2018 with highest honors. Always keen to broaden her musical and personal horizon, Josephine graduated with her Master of Performance from the studio of Prof. Brandon Vamos, at Jacobs School of Music Bloomington (Indiana University, USA) in 2021.

Josephine gained important artistic inspiration from masterclasses with Wolfgang Böttcher, Wen-Sinn Yang, Troels Svane, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Julius Berger, Johannes Moser, and Richard Aaron.

Josephine performs on an Italian cello by Celestino Farotto, 1907.