Claudio Bohórquez, descent of Peruvian and Uruguayan ancestors, has been hailed as one of the most exciting and fascinating musicians of his generation by conductors, audiences, concert presenters and critics alike.His recent tour with the National Symphony Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach with concerts in Washington and Latin America was a huge success. He played “unforgettably and excellent” and his interpretation of the Lalo Cello concert was “the most beautiful I have ever heard”, wrote a Washington Post critic. In the 2012/2013 season Claudio Bohórquez was able to display his talent as chamber musician: he appeared in Madrid and Bilbao together with Jörg Widmann and Katia Skanavi and performed piano trios by Beethoven with Viviane Hagner and Jonathan Gilad during the Beethoven Marathon at Konzerthaus Berlin.
As a student of Boris Pergamenschikow, Claudio Bohórquez achieved success at an early age at international competitions such as the Tschaikowsky Youth Competition in Moscow and the Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris. This culminated in 2000 with three awards at the first International Pablo Casals Competition held under the auspices of the Kronberg Academy: Marta Casals Istomin presented Claudio Bohórquez with first prize, a special award for the best chamber music, and also the use of Casals’ Gofriller cello for a period of two years. He also won first prize at the International Music Competition in Geneva, an achievement that marked the start of his career as a soloist. Meanwhile he has become a teacher himself: since 2003 he is guest professor at the 'Hanns Eisler' Academy of Music in Berlin and was appointed as Professor at the Stuttgart Music Academy in autumn 2011.
Claudio Bohórquez has performed with the SächsischeStaatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, almost all of the German radio orchestras, the Württembergischen Kammerorchester Heilbronn, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Collegium Musicum Basel, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre de Toulouse, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. In Japan he has appeared with both the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In the United States he has recently performed concerts with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Renowned conductors with whom Claudio Bohórquez has worked include Daniel Barenboim, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jonathan Darlington, Thomas Dausgaard, Christoph Eschenbach, Hans Graf, Ruben Gazarian, Manfred Honeck, Yakov Kreizberg, Sir Neville Marriner, Eiji Oue, Krzysztof Penderecki, Leonard Slatkin, Tugan Sokhiev, Lothar Zagrosek and David Zinman.
Claudio Bohórquez has been invited to numerous festivals as a guest performer, including the Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, the City of London Festival, the Penderecki Festival in Warsaw and the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival. Appearances in the United States have included performances at the Tanglewood, Ravinia and Aspen festivals and the Hollywood Bowl. He also took part in the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival in Austria and Gidon Kremer's "Les Musiques" festival in Basel. As a passionate chamber musician he has performed together with Katia Skanavi and Jörg Widmann in Bilbao/Madrid, and with Viviane Hagner and Jonathan Gilad at the Beethoven Marathon at Konzerthaus Berlin.
Highlights of the past season include several concerts in the USA, notably in Washington with the National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the baton of Charles Dutoit, as well as concerts in Finland with the Kymi Sinfonietta conducted by Andreas Delfs. He also performed with Sinfonia Varsovia under Krzysztof Urbanski on the occasion of K. Penderecki’s 80th birthday. The 2015/2016 season will see him travel to Japan twice: for a tour with NHK Symphony Orchestra as well as trio programmes together with Daishin Kashimoto, violin, and Yu Kosuge, piano.
Besides several CD recordings, radio broadcasts and television appearances, Claudio Bohórquez performed on Paul Englishby's soundtrack of the film "Ten Minutes Older - The Cello" which was seen in cinemas around the world. Claudio Bohórquez has also worked with artist Klaus-Peter Kirchner on "Room for Pablo Casals", a work dedicated to the great cellist combining words, sounds and images.
Claudio Bohórquez plays a G. B. Rogeri violoncello presented to him by the Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg.