Laurence Lesser

LAURENCE LESSER was a top prize winner in the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and a participant in the historic Heifetz-Piatigorsky concerts and recordings. LESSER has been soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the New Japan Philharmonic and other orchestras worldwide. He was the first to record the Schönberg Cello Concerto and in 1966 was the first to perform it with orchestra since its 1936 introduction by Emanuel Feuermann.

As a chamber musician he has participated, among others, at the Casals, Marlboro, Spoleto and Santa Fe festivals and in the last decade has been a regular contributor to the artistic life of the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. He has also been a member of juries for numerous international competitions, including chairing the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1994. In 2002 he was on the jury of both the Paulo Competition in Helsinki and the Feuermann Competition in Berlin and last year was chairman of the Leipzig Bach Cello Competition.

Mr. LESSER attended Harvard College, where he studied mathematics and graduated with honors. At the end of a Fulbright year studying music in Germany, he won first prize in the Cassadó Competition in Siena, Italy. His New York debut recital in 1969 was greeted as "triumphant".

In a life full of successful concerts, LESSER has always been passionate about teaching. He came to New England Conservatory in Boston in 1974 as a member of the faculty, after being the teaching assistant of Gregor Piatigorsky at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and spending four years at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. He served as president of NEC from 1983 to 1996. LESSER currently teaches an international class of highly gifted cellists at the conservatory.

LESSER plays a 1622 cello made by the brothers Amati in Cremona, Italy. His recordings have appeared on the RCA, Columbia, Melodiya and CRI labels among others.

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