Christoph Denoth

Having loved the guitar from an early age, he showed an extraordinary musical talent, which led him to study at the conservatoires of Lucerne, Basel, and Zurich. He started his concert career at the age of fifteen and was trained as a soloist at the Basel Musikakademie by Oscar Ghiglia, at the same time attending master classes with many of the world’s greatest performers, including Pepe Romero. Christoph also studied the Phenomenology of Music and Conducting with Sergiu Celibidache and has since conducted a number of orchestras, most notably in Basel.

He gave his London debut recital at Wigmore Hall in October 2012 as part of the BBC Live Lunchtime Solo Recital series and made his BBC Proms debut in 2013. He regularly performs as a soloist with chamber orchestras and ensembles, such as the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain, English Chamber Orchestra and the Offenburger Streichtrio, and has appeared as a soloist in Carnegie Hall (New York), the Philharmonie (Berlin), Wigmore Hall and Kings Place (London), the Mozarteum (Salzburg), and at international music festivals, including the Schleswig-Holstein (Germany).

He has won several international awards, including prizes at the 35th Concours International de Guitare de Paris (1993), sponsored by Radio France. In 2008, he was awarded the UBS Culture Award for Music.

As soloist with orchestra, Christoph has performed Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez in New York, and presented several other guitar concertos with the Orquesta de Cordoba (Spain), the Alba Orchestra (UK), and the English Chamber Orchestra under Gary Walker in Maurice Ohana’s Trois Graphiques.

Among his acclaimed CD recordings is an album of guitar concertos (2015), with the London Symphony Orchestra under Jesus Lopez Cobos (Signum Records) in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuéz and Lorenzo Palomo’s Nocturnos de Andalucia, and a ground-breaking CD An den Mond with Martina Janková (soprano) (Philips/Universal) of lieder by Schubert, Mozart and Haydn. In 2014 he also released two solo albums: Mister Dowland’s Midnight and Homages, a collection of musical dedications by Sor, Villa-Lobos, Rodrigo and others (Signum Records).

In his quest to promote the repertoire for voice and guitar he has accompanied Dame Felicity Lott at the Oxford Lieder Festival (2011) and taken part in the BBC’s Spirit of Schubert week (2012), accompanying Ruby Hughes (soprano) and premiering a rare piece by Schubert for guitar and male trio. With Ruby Hughes and tenor James Gilchrist he has also given a BBC Proms recital (2013) of Benjamin Britten’s Songs from the Chinese and Folksong Arrangements..

Christoph became the first Swiss Musician-in-Residence (2006-2009) at Balliol College, Oxford and in 2010 was appointed to the Royal Academy of Music to coach the repertoire for voice and guitar. He is regularly invited to lecture and give master classes at the faculties of Philosophy and Music at Oxford University, Glasgow University, Musikhochschule Luzern, Tulane University New Orleans, Skopje University, the University of Sheffield (lecture on Science and Music with physiologist Denis Noble), Tirana University, Western Carolina University, St. Bonaventure University and others.

Regarding contemporary music he premiered Hans Martin Linde’s 5 Traces after Benjamin Britten in Buenos Aires (2013) and is planning premieres of further concertos by Barrington Pheloung, Lorenzo Palomo and Stephen Goss.