The 41st Kusatsu International Summer Music Academy & Festival has unfortunately been cancelled due to the worldwide spread of COVID-19. Although the music festival cannot be held, we have received messages from seven of the faculty members who were planning to participate in this year’s festival.
We will introduce a video message from Prof. Wolfgang Boettcher.

It is very sad news that Kusatsu Academy & Festival is cancelled. Also in our country, Flesch-Akademie and G.Mahler Youth Orchesra and many more events are cancelled. I think that Beethoven is a very interesting subject, also for cellists: string quartets triple concerto, Septet and many more pieces. The young cellists should study the Duport’s etudes. I am looking forward to seeing you all next time.

Wolfgang Boettcher

Cello / Participated 13 times in total since the 5th (1984) Kusatsu International Summer Music Academy & Festival.
Started his career as prize-winner of the International Music Competition, Munich. He played with many important orchestras and in the centers of the musical world, and with conductors as Herbert von Karajan, Sergiu Celibidache, Seiji Ozawa, Daniel Barenboim and others. Up to summer 1976 he was solo cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. He left this position to devote exclusively to his career as a soloist and chamber music player and overtook a professorship at the Berlin Universität der Künste. Many excellent young cellists come from his class of Universität der Künste Berlin where he has kept position as Emeritus Professor.

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