Truls Mørk’s compelling performances, combining fierce intensity, integrity and grace, have established him as one of the pre-eminent cellists of our time.
He is a celebrated artist who performs with the most distinguished orchestras including the Orchestre de Paris, Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker, Philharmonia and London Philharmonic orchestras and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In North America he has appeared withthe New York Philharmonic, The Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Conductor collaborations include Mariss Jansons, David Zinman, Manfred Honeck, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Christoph Eschenbach, amongst others.
During the 2016/17 season Truls Mørk will be Artist-in-Residence with the Gothenburg Symphony which will include both concerto performances and chamber music. He continues to give regular recitals at major venues and festivals throughout the world – he was one of the featured artists at the 2016 Piatigorsky International Cello Festival in Los Angeles and will return to the Verbier Festival in 2017.
A great champion of contemporary music, Truls Mørk has given in excess of 30 premieres. These include Rautavaara’s Towards the Horizon with the BBC Symphony Orchestra/John Storgårds, Pavel Haas’ Cello Concerto with Wiener Philharmoniker/Jonathan Nott, Krzysztof Penderecki’s Concerto for Three Cellos with the NHK Symphony Orchestra/Charles Dutoit and Haflidi Hallgrimsson’s Cello Concerto, co-commissioned by the Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony and Scottish Chamber orchestras.
With an impressive recording output, Truls Mørk has recorded many of the great cello concertos for labels such as Virgin Classics, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Ondine, Arte Nova and Chandos many of which have won international awards including Gramophone, Grammy, Midem and ECHO Klassik awards. These include Dvořák’s Concerto (Mariss Jansons/Oslo Philharmonic), Britten’s Cello Symphony and Elgar’s Concerto (Sir Simon Rattle/CBSO), Miaskovsky Concerto and Prokofiev’s Sinfonia Concertante (Paavo Järvi/CBSO), Dutilleux (Myung-Whun Chung/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France), CPE Bach (Bernard Labadie/Les Violons du Roy), Haydn’s Concertos (Iona Brown/Norwegian Chamber Orchestra), Rautavaara’s Towards the Horizon (John Storgårds/Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra) as well as the complete Bach Cello Suites and Britten Cello Suites. His most recent recordings include Shostakovich’s Concertos with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko, works for cello and orchestra by Massenet with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Neeme Järvi and the Saint-Saens Concertos together with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Neeme Järvi.
Initially taught by his father, Truls Mørk continued his studies with Frans Helmerson, Heinrich Schiff and Natalia Schakowskaya. In his early career he won a number of competitions such as the Moscow Tchaikovsky Competition (1982), Cassado Cello Competition in Florence (1983), the Unesco Prize at the European Radio-Union competition in Bratislava (1983) and the Naumberg Competition in New York (1986).