She has performed in prisons and orphanages.
Music critics predict a world career for her.
The 30-year-old cellist Raphaela Gromes draws strength in her home on Lake Starnberg.
On Friday she plays with top-class colleagues in the Pöckinger Beccult.
Feldafing / Pöcking - Tour life as a musician, she finally has it back. It is a lucky coincidence that Merkur from Starnberg reached Raphaela Gromes by phone in her apartment in Feldafing on a Friday afternoon. “I came back from Switzerland yesterday, and I'm going back to Berlin this afternoon,” says the 30-year-old. The cellist's new album, “Imagination”, finally wants to be presented live, and she also plays “Great symphonic music in a small cast” in a top-class chamber music line-up. That is the title of the concert on Friday in the Pöckinger Beccult. Then the woman who music critics call “probably the most successful contemporary German cellist” and for whom they predict a world career can be heard back home.
Gromes has been living on Lake Starnberg again for six years.
She grew up in Freising.
But because her father taught at the Starnberg Music School, she got to know the region - and love it.
“The lake with the swans and the Alps in the background.
Living there was a childhood dream for me. ”It was fulfilled: One of her first concerts as a teenager was organized by the Art and Music Association Starnberger See.
And he's going to do that on Friday too.
The connection to the base is established.
Music from "The Lord of the Rings" and "Star Wars" on chamber music album
After studying in Leipzig and Munich, Gromes moved back. “I tour a lot, so I need a place of calm to recharge my batteries. I also look for inspiration in nature, ”she says. This is what happened with the album "Imagination". The mystical-magical light during a hike in the forest made her want to experience fairy tale worlds - and Popper's Elf Dance, Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty Waltz and Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream. But also modern film music composers such as Howard Shore ("The Lord of the Rings") or John Williams ("Star Wars") gave Gromes a place on the chamber music album.
Even if the genre is different, the 30-year-old has one thing in common with Johnny Cash: she performed in prison.
She has mixed memories of a concert in a Bavarian prison.
The scenario: Two women in front of 100 men, including rapists.
"At first I felt a little uncomfortable - especially since the prison director introduced me and a violinist as a feast for the eyes," she says.
“But then we just plunged into the music.
They were totally enthusiastic, we had never received such applause.
In the end we played five encores. "
Gromes wants to bring classical music to those who don't have access
It is Gromes' concern to bring classical music to those who do not have access to it. The ambassador for SOS Children's Villages played in Mongolia, Lebanon and South Korea, gave orphaned children music workshops and sparked interest in learning to play an instrument. She succeeded in doing that again in July when she invited refugee children from Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and Nigeria to the Grünwald Forest Experience Center. "Music can be an anchor in a difficult childhood, it can inspire and change life," says Gromes.
Her musical life in a nutshell: She was four when she picked up the cello (a small one) for the first time as the child of two cellists.
She was nine when she and her mother attended all ten Wagner operas at the Berlin State Opera.
She is 30 and has won a lot of prizes: that of the German music competition, that of the German record critics, the Opus Klassik.
If the pandemic allows, Gromes wants to "travel and play concerts all over the world" again.
Most of all, one day at Carnegie Hall in New York.
"This is a great musician's dream."
The concert in Pöcking
Cellist Raphaela Gromes will play works by Mendelssohn and Bartholdy (Symphony No. 1), Schubert (Symphony in B minor) and Beethoven (Symphony No. 5) together with the piano duo Tal & Groethuysen and violinist Sergey Malov on Friday from 8 p.m. in the Beccult .
Admission is from 7 p.m., entry costs 35 euros.
Members of the organizing art and music association Starnberger See pay 30 euros.
Tickets are available by email at info@kmv-starnberger-see.de or at the Reinhard Spöttl hairdressing salon in Feldafing.
