Mikael Ericsson
Born in Arvika, Sweden, into a family of musicians, he began playing cello with the Danish teacher Hans Erik Deckert before continuing his education with Prof. Erling Blöndal Bengtson at the Conservatory of Swedish Radio in the castle Edsberg and at the Royal Danish Conservatory in Copenhagen. In addition he attended master classes with the French cellist Guy Fallot and the “cello legend” Gregor Piatigorsky. A meeting with the Czech violinist and teacher Josef Vlach brought him to Prague for further studies. In 1978 Mikael Ericsson made it to the finals of the famous Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (the first Swede ever to do so); in 1980 he won the Prague Spring international competition as well as the prize for best interpretation of a contemporary Czech composition. Mikael Ericsson performs together with his wife, Jana Vlachová, in the Vlach Quartet Prague, which was founded in 1982 and is dedicated primarily to the classical literature for string quartet and the work of Antonín Dvořák. Since 1977 the couple has also performed as a string duo with chamber music repertoire that is all too infrequently performed; together they recorded a CD with compositions for violin and violoncello by Ravel, Honegger, and Martinů.
As a soloist Mikael Ericsson has performed with orchestras in Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Spain; he toured in Sweden with the Stockholm Radio Orchestra (and played Dvořák’s Cello Concerto); with the Czech Chamber Orchestra, with which he has associated as orchestral musician and soloist for many years he toured Spain. Mikael Ericsson’s curiosity and joy of discovery know no bounds in the history of music: his programs include a wide variety of solo, duo, and concerto works for violoncello—from Vivaldi to Schnittke, from Boccherini to premieres of contemporary works. Ericsson proved himself a musical treasure seeker with his discovery and first recording of the cello concertos of Josef Rejcha (which he recorded with the Czech Chamber Orchestra under Ondrej Kukal) and Carl Stamitz (that CD, recorded with the Suk Chamber Orchestra under Petr Skvor, was awarded the prize of the Czech Music Fund). Mikael Ericsson is also passionately interested in arrangements for string ensembles and polished solo cadenzas for cello concertos.
His last CD: Cello M.E. (containing only works, also from Ericsson himself, for cello-solo) obtained o.a. the reward "Jun-Kokusen" in the magazine Record Geijutsu in Japan.
M.Ericsson works as a pedagogue at the Conservatory in Plzen (from 2006) and at the Academy of Music in Prague (from 2010)