Cello
Hailed by critics for her “most perfect playing” (Internet Cello Society) with “great warmth and beauty” (The STRAD), cellist Bongshin Ko has appeared worldwide as a soloist with such groups as Munich Chamber Players, Television and Radio Symphony of Moscow, the KBS Korean Broadcasting Symphony, Zagreb Philharmonic, and Central Broadcasting Symphony of China. In 1992 Ms. Ko was honored to be the first Korean artist to be invited to perform in China after the historic resumption of diplomatic relations between Korea and China, and has since been invited back annually.
Ms. Ko has collaborated with some of the world’s greatest artists including Mstislav Rostropovich, Bernard Greenhouse, Sir Georg Solti, Leonard Stein, Gunther Schuller, Semyon Bychkov and Valery Gergiev. In 1997 she appeared with the Korean Symphony at Seoul International Music Festival to give the Asian premiere of Bernard Rands’ Cello Concerto, composed and dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich in celebration of his 70th birthday. Other international music events and festivals welcomed her to Schleswig-Holstein festival, Kronberg Cello festival, Berlin Wall 10th anniversary concert, Rostropovich & Friends Concert (Germany), plus numerous others in France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Luxembourg, Poland, Russia, Monaco, Croatia, USA, Korea, China, Japan and Indonesia.
She has performed to critical acclaims on NDR and Bavarian Radio (Germany), Fuji TV (Japan), TV New Zealand, TV China, Korean Broadcasting Systems and NBC to name a few. As a member of the European-based Tritton Cello Quartet she can be heard on the Musica Columna label. Her live performances of Brahms and Barber sonatas are often broadcast on the Arte TV in Korea and over the transpacific in-flight classical station on Asiana Airlines. Ms. Ko’s Haydn and Saint-Saens concerti, recorded with Munich Chamber Players in Germany, can also be heard on the SONY Classical label.
As a recipient of over 30 international prizes and awards, including the highest performance award in her native Korea and the Crossroad Award in the US for her “superior teaching,” she is on popular demand as a teacher as well as a performer around the globe. Serving on various festival and university faculties including California State University, Fullerton, The New York Soloists, and Greenhouse Cello Foundation, Ms. Ko performs frequently at major venues and concert halls throughout four continents.