Cordelia Wikarski-Miedel

Northwest Artist-in-Residence, violincello

Phone: 253.879.3725
E-mail 

Cordelia Wikarski-Miedel has won rave reviews in Europe and the United States for her unique, rich cello sound.  She is a consummate cellist, playing with great interpretive depth, strength, passion and intensity.  She currently heads the chamber music program, in addition to teaching university and community music cello students.  Prior to joining the faculty at Puget Sound, Professor Wikarski-Miedel held a faculty position at the Academy of Music "Hanns Eisler" in the former East Berlin.  Born in Berlin, Ms. Wikarski-Miedel completed her artist's diploma in West Berlin's Academy of Music.  She studied with Maurice Gendron of France, and Professor August Eichhorn of Leipzig, Germany.  At the age of 19 she and her pianist sister Eleonore Wikarski won first prize in the International Competition for Cello-Piano Duo in Munich, Germany.  Professor Wikarski-Miedel also was a finalist in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and she was a prize winner at the Pablo Casals Competition in Budapest.  The government of former East Germany conferred upon her its coveted Felix Mendelssohn Award for her excellence in music.  Her Berlin-based years included regular concert tours with her sister as Duo Wikarski, spanning concert halls in Scandinavia, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and as far afield as India.  Among their reviews was this line from the newspaper Pravda, which called their performance "A treat for every music lover."  Cordelia Wikarski-Miedel's career highlights include performances at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and television appearances at the Goethe House in Weimar, as well as a performance in Moscow with the State Radio Orchestra under the baton of the legendary Gennady Rozhdestvensky.  She also has performed extensively on television and radio, and in recordings with her sister Eleonore Wikarski.  Since her 1977 arrival in the United States, Professor Wikarski-Miedel has performed as a soloist with leading orchestras throughout the Northwest, including the Seattle Symphony orchestra, Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, Northwest Chamber Orchestra and the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra.  Wikarski-Miedel conducted a successful research program on different approaches to string playing by visiting universities in the United States and abroad, during a sabbatical leave.  The Seattle Times has called Professor Wikarski-Miedel "one of our great Northwest artists, and a performer of the top international caliber...she compels one to listen."  The Stockholm, Sweden media have called one of her performances "an inspiring acquaintance with a great artist." The German critics praise her "rare mixture of musical passion and tonal clarity."   More recently, Professor Wikarski-Miedel has attended musical events in Cordoba, Spain, researching new chamber works (one of which was performed recently at Puget Sound). She also was invited by the Tainan College of the Arts in Taiwan during the 2002-03 season to present master classes and concerts in a residency there with the pianist Craig Sheppard.  As Northwest Artist in Residence at Puget Sound, Professor Wikarski-Miedel brings more than four decades of concert experience to her cello and chamber music students.  Her extremely wide repertoire spans several centuries, including great cello works or our own time by Shostakovich, Barber, William Schuman and Schoenberg.  "Teaching at Puget Sound in the School of Music, I work closely together with my colleagues to help provide for the students an atmosphere of learning and the assurance of a foundation to prepare them for their professional life," she says.  "My goals are to create in my students the confidence that hard work leads to better understanding of the music; to improve their technical skills, and to encourage their vision, this is a very rewarding task."