Ana Turkalj & Aleck Carratta
Biography Ana Turkalj & Aleck Carratta
Ana Turkalj
Croatian cellist Ana Turkalj was born in Hainburg on the Danube because of the Yugoslav Wars and grew up in Austria. As a child, she lay in her brother's cello case, listening to his playing, and discovered her love for music.
As her extraordinary musical talent developed, she attended master classes with renowned musicians* and won an above-average number of cello competition awards in Croatia, Italy and Austria as well as a special prize as a pianist in Vienna.
She is a laureate of the Austrian competition "Prima la Musica" (2002, 2004, 2009), the European competition "Alfredo e Vanda Marcosig" in Gorizia, (2005, 2008, 2009), the international competition in Dubrovnik "Rudolf Matz" (2006, 2007), the "Antonio Janigro" in Porec (2006) and the cello competition in Liezen (2002, 2008).
The Zurich University of the Arts accepted her as a young student in 2009, where she began her actual studies with Prof. Orfeo Mandozzi two years later. In 2013 she moved to the Music Academy Basel to Ivan Monighetti, Rafael Rosenfeld, Thomas Demenga and later to the "School of Excellence" course with Danjulo Ishizaka.
She received fruitful impulses in master classes with Götz Teutsch, Wolfgang Böttcher, Seiji Ozawa, Arto Noras, Bernard Greenhouse and Nicolas Altstaedt, among others.
Further competition prizes followed: First Prizes at the Austrian Lion's Club and the Swiss Youth Music Competition, as well as the Recognition Prize of the Basel Orchestra Society.
In 2018, she won the internship in the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra and was honored as a rising musician with the "Golden Medal" at the "4th International Manhattan Competition 2019".
Ana Turkalj is a member of the Atl-Trio, the Alean Duo, which was a prize winner at the 2019 Orpheus Competition, and the duo "A.T.ea for two", which released a CD on "Lion Crown's music records" in 2019.
International concert engagements as soloist and chamber musician have taken her to famous music centers, including Vienna, Salzburg, Florence, Venice, Verona, Rome, Ljubljana, Barcelona, London, New York, Boston, Tokyo and Mexico City.
She currently has recording contracts with the labels "Brilliant Classics" and "Naxos".
"Ana Turkalj is musically versatile and stands out not only as a gifted instrumentalist on the cello and piano, but also has a recognizable sound and a special expressiveness on the cello.
Her musical sophistication and tonal variety come through colorfully in interpretations of various musical styles..."
Götz Teutsch, principal cellist with the Berlin Philharmonic 1970-1976
"Soloist Ana Turkalj interpreted Dvorka's Cello Concerto with verve, tonal sense and emotional depth...with stirring ease and technical aplomb she spanned the arc through the three wide-ranging movements without losing her sense of the precious details within the great whole. For the great performance, the audience asked her to come on stage for two encores!" (Niederämter Anzeiger 2019)
