Among the world’s busiest concert soloists, there exists a special sub-group whose superpower in interview with journalists is to always look genuinely relaxed and pleased to be there, no matter how intense their schedule is. Cellist Anastasia Kobekina is one such artist, which I’m reminded of afresh as her beaming face appears onscreen for our video call – because while she’s dialling in from home in Berlin, this is a precious moment of calm before going back on the road.
After Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart for Elgar’s Cello Concerto, next comes Utrecht, reuniting with the Chamber Orchestra of Basel. Then at the start of May it’s off to Prague for the three performances with Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic, presenting the new cello concerto written for her by Bryce Dessner: Trembling Earth.
Kobekina first met Dessner – currently the Czech Philharmonic’s first-ever Composer-in-Residence – when she was invited to perform two pieces on his own 2024 album for Sony Classical, Solos, and the recording session became an exciting meeting of minds. “The way he felt the music was so natural,” she remembers with warmth, “and our respective feelings were in the same direction, which was a great feeling in a studio situation where you don’t have much time.”
For Trembling Earth to be born required what Kobekina describes as “many different puzzle pieces having to come together”, and indeed its list of co-commissioners beyond the Czech Philharmonic is inspiringly long and multinational, comprised of the National Concert Hall in Dublin, Konzerthaus Berlin, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia Orchestra. Dublin hosted the November 2025 world premiere, and performances with the latter three orchestras take place respectively this June, September, and early 2027.
For this new work to immediately be under the fingers of so many different orchestras, and thus in front of so many different audiences around the world, is a source of much pleasure to Kobekina. “It’s a great piece,” she says, “and it feels attuned to our times, from its subject matter exploring nature’s enduring power, to how it's written, shaped and addressed. I think it's a piece that resonates with audiences.”
Asked to elaborate on its writing, she waxes lyrical. “The writing for cello is rich, and with technical elements that showcase the best of the instrument. For me, one of the concerto’s most touching moments is the quote from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. It’s mesmerising, the way he first shows the line of Purcell’s theme, before merging it into the concerto, weaving it through the different parts of the orchestra to become something quite different. Truly, this is mastery in terms of how to use a quote.”
The further element to be enjoyed with these forthcoming Prague performances is simply the chance to reunite with the Czech Philharmonic, with whom she enjoys a notably strong relationship. Last year she toured Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the orchestra, also together with Bychkov. It was also with the Czech Philharmonic and Jakub Hrůša that in 2024 she made one of the most significant debuts of her early career – at the BBC Proms, also with the Dvořák concerto.
Kobekina’s memories of that Proms debut, and how she felt alongside the orchestra, are not likely to fade any time soon. “The first time I met with them to rehearse, I travelled to them in Prague from Frankfurt, by train,” she reminisces. “It was a long journey, and it was at some midway point, as I stood on a station platform, that it suddenly dawned on me that I was going to Prague, that I was going to play the Dvořák concerto with the Czech Philharmonic whose language this is, and to rehearse in the Rudolfinum where Dvořák conducted. For the first time, all these facts collided together in my head, and I was… I wouldn’t say I was panicked, but I was in deep shock!” She laughs, still sounding faintly shocked even now.
“I don’t think that the full realisation had hit me before that moment, and now that it had, it felt so big, so sacred, that I couldn’t absorb it. It was, ‘Can I do this?’ I had to call a few trusted people, for support.” Precise memories from the rehearsal are consequently a little vague, she was still so under the effect of this realisation. However, she does clearly remember what she felt from the orchestra’s musicians themselves. “Something that for me defines the Czech Philharmonic sound is the incredible generosity of heart that they’re pouring into it,” she exudes. “When they play Dvořák, you feel that this is their music, their cultural treasure, that they’re carrying to the world. All these people pouring their souls and love into the sound, through their acoustic instruments. This is something that you cannot fake. It is truly special to experience, especially in our world.”
Such words are not only true, but very Kobekina, given that she herself is someone who gives a loving 110 percent to seemingly everything she touches. Take the world of Baroque repertoire and performance, which she first began exploring around eight years ago. Acquiring a Baroque cello, she began taking lessons on it right around the time that her career truly took off, following the 2018 Schoenfeld International String Competition – where she had gained not only Second Prize, but also her managers, one of whom had been on the jury. Baroque repertoire takes a starring role on the aforementioned Venice album, and even more so for her second album with Sony, released last year, featuring Bach’s solo cello suites.
“I find the Baroque performance world so inspiring and fascinating,” she explains. “There are a lot of written rules, and yet the musicians are so incredibly free and expressive; I’m fascinated by their way of shaping. Modern playing meanwhile has no written rules, but somehow everybody sticks to the same ones. This is the paradox for me.”
For a snapshot of her latest Baroque explorations, a search online quickly turns up clips of Kobekina playing viola da gamba with a remarkable degree of accomplishment. “I haven’t even been playing it 18 months,” she chuckles bashfully when I mention it. “I can play three pieces! But I took some lessons because the sound of the instrument is so beautiful.” Technique-wise, she explains, the right hand isn’t too dramatically different to that of the cello. But the bowing technique diverges more fundamentally, with a lower hold requiring a different way of balancing the arm. “If only I had the time then I would love to learn more,” she sighs wistfully.
One further recent instrumental experiment – the results of which you won’t find online – is the year’s loan, plus some lessons, of a violin. It is the instrument Kobekina would have loved to play as a child, had her parents not refused it in favour of the cello, which she began aged four. “It was my attempt to finally fulfil my childhood dream,” she says, “but even after a few lessons, I sounded horrendous! But cello was wonderful. I first used it as a toy. I loved spinning it and dressing up for a house concert for my parents. We have all these home videos of me wearing a paper crown, able to only pluck the strings and sing to it, but also doing some poetry improvisation. Children are so creative and fearless.”
Creative and fearless are adjectives that still describe Kobekina, nowhere more apparent than on social media. While for many artists, the social media engagement side of the job – essentially compulsory in these days of record labels, concert promoters and managers expecting artists to be active self-promotors – feels more like a burden than a boon, Kobekina appears to have fully embrace it as an opportunity to play with her visual artistic talents, from drawing and photography to fashion. Asked whether that’s how she sees it herself, her response is in fact centred not around self-development but entirely outward-facing.
“I think it's nearly impossible to get a feeling for someone from a YouTube video performance,” she says. “Whereas you will quickly get that from the way somebody posts on Instagram. And I think that in our world, the personal stories matter. It also means that I get to know some of my audience. In today’s world the act of giving an entire evening over to attending a classical concert means something, so I want to see who they are and why they came – and also to look into the worlds of other people rather than simply living in my own social bubble.”
Back to concerts, beyond her appearance in Prague, one further performance mentioned with anticipatory pleasure as we wrap up is the July opening concert of the Schleswig Holstein festival, performing Dvořák’s concerto with Karina Canellakis and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra – shortly after performing it in Seoul with the Wiener Philharmoniker. Further proof, if any were needed, that if there’s one thing Kobekina is not living in, it’s her own social bubble.
Anastasia Kobekina performs Bryce Dessner with the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov on 6th–8th May.
See upcoming performances by the Czech Philharmonic and Anastasia Kobekina.
This article was sponsored by the Czech Philharmonic.
