Kim Bak Dinitzen, Cello (Associate)

Kim Bak Dinitzen has been a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe since 1990.

Kim was born in Denmark in 1963. His main teachers were Erling Bløndal Bengtsson in Copenhagen and Ralph Kirshbaum in London. He has also participated in masterclasses with Rostropovich and William Pleeth, amongst others.

Since his debut in 1986 he has been a soloist with all major Danish orchestras and won many awards, among them the Victor Borge Prize and the Jacob Gade Award.

Outside of Denmark, Kim has been a prizewinner at several international competitions. In the US, he won both East & West Artists Prize for New York Debut and 1st Prize for Cello at the Washington International Competition. This led to recitals at New York’s Carnegie Hall and at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. In Europe he won prizes at the Nordic Cello Competition in Turku, Finland and at the Cassado Competition in Florence, Italy. He made his recital debut at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1991 and has since performed in the US and in Europe both as soloist and recitalist and taken part in international festivals in Båstad (Sweden), Prussia Cove (UK), Hakuba (Japan) and Rio de Janeiro and Recife (Brazil).

Kim has been a teacher at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. At present he is principal cello at the Royal Danish Orchestra and a teacher at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.

His recordings include Britten’s complete works for cello, the complete works for cello and piano by Fauré and sonatas by Brahms, Strauss, Prokofiev and Schnittke. He has also recorded the string quintets, sextet and octet by Niels W. Gade with the English Johannes Ensemble and the Emil Hartmann cello concerto with the South Jutland Symphony Orchestra.