Georg Pedersen
University of Sydney
Danish cellist Georg Pedersen has given well over 3000 concerts in 24 countries, has recorded on 12 different labels, and is broadcast all over the world. He studied in Copenhagen with Geisler, In Paris with Tortelier, and in Los Angeles with Piatigorsky. For eleven years he was Solo Cellist with the Royal Danish Philharmonic – Det Kongelige Kapel – regarded by Karajan, Bernstein, Celibidache, Rozhdestvensky, Kleiber, Markevich and Klemperer, as being amongst the ten best orchestras in the world. During this time he was also a member of the Copenhagen Chamber Soloists and the Dania String Quartet.
After university positions in Auckland, Adelaide and Melbourne, Georg Pedersen has been at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney University, since 1985. An internationally sought after teacher, his students regularly win top prizes in international, national and state competitions, as well as in Eisteddfods, and go on to study with the best teachers in the world. His students are professors and principal cellists at leading schools and orchestras in Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Georg’s younger students have full music scholarships at all the best private schools in Sydney, such as Sydney Grammar, MLC Burwood, PLC, St Andrews, Knox Grammar, Scots College, etc., and they arrive from all capital cities to study with him at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Conservatorium High School and in the Rising Stars Programme.
Georg has performed all the great cello concertos with major orchestras in Denmark, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. He has been guest principal cellist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He has played with The Sydney String Quartet, The Soloists of Australia, The Sydney Trio, The Australian Trio, The Australia Ensemble, Flederman, The Kobets Quartet, The Pini-Hazelwood concerts, The Ku-Ring-Gai Virtuosi, The Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, The Adelaide Chamber Orchestra, and many others. He has given recitals and master classes in Europe, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. Georg has also commissioned and premiered many new works from Australian composers, with grants from Australia Council. He continues to travel for Musica Viva and the Department of Foreign Affairs, broadcasts regularly for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and gives every year many concerts in Australia and abroad.
Georg has taught in National Summer Music Camps and Schools in Denmark, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. His teaching combines the Scandinavian, Russian and French schools, with roots going back to Feuillard, Casals and Klengel. Pedersen has created his own teaching material, to fill in the gaps in existing material, in a concise and comprehensive manner. He is regarded as being at the cutting edge of artistic and pedagogical research and is much in demand internationally. In 2011 he gave masterclasses at the Juillard School in New York, Northwestern University in Chicago and at the International Cello Festival in Adelaide. In 2012 he will be in Los Angeles for the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.