“Flawless intonation ... an intimacy of expression” – Susanne Szambelan, the Polish cellist from Berlin

Susanne Szambelan was born in New York in 1993. She grew up in Poznań, where she began learning piano aged five before later switching to the cello. At just 15, she made her début with the Kaunas Symphony Orchestra in Lithuania. This was followed by solo performances throughout Europe, including with the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra (Orkiestra Filharmonii Poznańskiej) and the Orchestra of the Capital Royal City of Kraków (Orkiestra Stołecznego Królewskiego Miasta Krakowa) “Sinfonietta Cracovia”.

Susanne Szambelan began studying music in 2012, when she joined the cello class of the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music (Akademia Muzyczna im. Krzysztofa Pendereckiego) in Kraków. During this period, she recorded a solo album with pieces by Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana, directed by Robert Kabara and accompanied by the “Sinfonietta Cracovia”. The album was released under the DUX label in 2013. On the “Pizzicato” website, the highly regarded music critic Remy Frank had nothing but praise for the album: “Here, flawless intonation, impeccable grasp of the colour palette and dynamic, a nobility of tone and intimacy of expression are perfectly combined. It’s been a long time since I last heard such a gripping interpretation of the Dvořák concerto”[1]. In his review, he described Szambelan as “a world-class cellist”.

In 2014, she moved to Berlin, where she began studying under Stephan Forck and later under Claudio Bohórquez at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler.

Her passion for chamber music led to collaborations with artists such as Boris Brovtsyn, Daniel Hope, Noah Bendix-Balgley, the Vogler Quartet and to frequent performances with the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic. From 2021–2024, she received a scholarship for the prestigious Academy for Chamber Music (Akademie für Kammermusik) of the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz. She has also performed at festivals such as Krzyżowa-Music, Zermatt Music Festival, Plush and Encuentro de Música in Santander. Since 2024, she has been a member of the Lyatoshynsky Trio and the interdisciplinary ensemble menajiri.

During the 2022/2023 season, she was a scholarship holder at the Kurt-Sanderling-Akademie of the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra. There, she was able to gain experience working with a professional symphony orchestra directed by conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach and Iván Fischer.

In 2021, at the invitation of Daniel Hope, Susanne Szambelan performed for Poland as part of the “Europe@Home” ARTE concert series. In 2023, she gave a solo recital at the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, which consisted exclusively of works by Polish composers.

In 2022, she recorded a second album, “dichter.liebe” in collaboration with the guitarist Jerzy Chwastyk, which included songs by Robert Schumann interpreted for cello and guitar. The music is accompanied by selected poems by Heinrich Heine, read by the German actor Hanns Zischler. The album was released on the Prospero Classical label and was nominated for the OPUS KLASSIK 2023 prize.

Projects such as “dichter.liebe” and “Kodály Reframed” (performed as a duet with the saxophonist Hayden Chisholm) reflect the versatility of the cellist and her constant search for new forms of expression.

Monika Stefanek, March 2025