Natalia Gutman

b. 1942 (Kazan)

Natalia Gutman is a Soviet and Russian cellist and music teacher, born in Kazan on November 14, 1942. She began studying the cello at five with her stepfather, cellist Roman Sapozhnikov, and continued at fourteen with her grandfather, Anisim Berlin. She gave her first solo concert at age nine.

Gutman studied at the Gnessin Music School and the Central Music School in Moscow, where her teachers included Semyon Aslamazyan and Galina Kozolupova. She graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1964 and completed postgraduate studies at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1968 under Mstislav Rostropovich. The pianist Sviatoslav Richter, with whom she was friends and often performed, and violinist Oleg Kagan, who became her husband, had a major influence on her musical development.

Gutman became a soloist with Mosconcert in 1964 and the Moscow Philharmonic in 1976. She has toured internationally since 1962. Her repertoire ranges from Johann Sebastian Bach and Luigi Boccherini to Dmitri Shostakovich and Witold Lutosławski. She has performed with orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and played chamber music with Richter, Isaac Stern, Kagan, Martha Argerich, Yuri Bashmet, and Evgeny Kissin.

Composers who dedicated works to Gutman include Alfred Schnittke, who wrote a cello sonata and a cello concerto for her, as well as Edison Denisov and Sofia Gubaidulina. From 1982, she was a regular participant in the December Evenings festival, founded by Richter and held at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

Gutman has served on the juries of international competitions and led several festivals. From 1990, she organized and directed the annual Oleg Kagan Memorial Festival in Kreuth, Germany; from 1999, she also led the Oleg Kagan Dedication International Chamber Music Festival in Moscow. In 1992, she and Claudio Abbado founded the Berlin Encounters festival, which she directed until 2000. She has also taken part in the Lucerne and Salzburg festivals and the BBC Proms.

Gutman taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1967 to 1977 and returned in 1996; she is a professor there and teaches cello. From 1991 to 2004, she was a professor at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts. Since 2001, she has also taught at the music school in Fiesole, Italy, and regularly gives master classes internationally. Her students include Alexander Buzlov, Dmitri Prokofiev, and Alexander Kotlyarevsky.

Her competition awards include first prize at the Dvořák International Cello Competition in Prague in 1961, third prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1962, and first prize at the International Chamber Ensemble Competition in Munich in 1967, shared with pianist Alexander Nasedkin. She was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1991 and received the State Prize of the Russian Federation in 2000. Gutman is also a member of the board of the Vera hospice charity in Moscow.

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