Fabian Johannes Strnad

Biography

German cellist Fabian Johannes Strnad (born 12 September 2010 in Düsseldorf) began playing the cello at the age of four. Since 2023, he has been a junior student at the Pre-College of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, where he studies with Grigory Alumyan.

Since 2018, Fabian has received first prizes annually at the German competition Jugend musiziert, including several national first prizes. In 2024, together with his cello octet, he won First Prize with the highest possible score at the national competition and received the Special Prize of the Gesellschaftshaus Magdeburg and the Special Prize of the Manfred Vetter Foundation for Art and Culture.

His recent awards include First Prize at the International Competition for Young Musicians "Eilat Competition" (Israel, 2025), the Arndt Joosten Prize at the Carl Flesch Academy (2025), Second Prize at the Thirteenth Stockholm International Music Competition (2026), and the title of Absolute Winner of the Haydn Competition (2026).

As a soloist, Fabian has performed with the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra and the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra in concertos by Vivaldi, Shostakovich and Haydn. He has worked with conductors Richard Gwilt, Johannes Witt, Heiko Mathias Förster, Judith Kubitz and Yorgos Ziavras.

Fabian has performed at venues including the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Kurhaus Baden-Baden, Collegium Leoninum Bonn, Gesellschaftshaus Magdeburg and the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. Since June 2026, he has been a scholarship holder of the International Career Projects of the Tiziano Rossetti Academy in Lugano, Switzerland.