Nuala McKenna

German-Irish cellist Nuala McKenna studied with Jean-Guihen Queyras, Ivan Monighetti and

Conradin Brotbek. She was appointed solo cellist of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in 2019. Before that she played as an academist in the Concertgebouw Orchestra and was a member of the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble where she became interested in performing on gut strings. She is a regular guest principal with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Netherlands Philharmonic, the Dutch Radio and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. She participated in several international festivals such as the Verbier Festival, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Podium Festival Esslingen, Cellobiennale Amsterdam and the Prinsengrachtconcert. She was also artistic director of her own festival “Musikfest Kahleby”  founded in 2016. Nuala played chamber music with among others Maria Joao Pires, the Talich Quartet and Olli Mustonen and appeared as a soloist with the Göttinger  infonieorchester, Theaterorchester Erfurt and the Kieler Kammerorchester. She is a member of the ‘Delta Piano Trio’ and the ‘Quartetto di Vicini’.

She was finalist of the Dutch Classical Talent with her solo program in 2019. Nuala received the prestigious ‘Diapason d’Or’ and ‘La Clef D’Or ResMusica’ awards for her debut CD  SOLO’ (2021) with 20th-century cello solo works. Her second CD ‘DUO’ with works for cello and piano from the  20th century was released in 2023. In 2023, the ‘Haus der Musik’ has donated her a cello with the annotation ‘Joseph Tecchler, Rome 1721