Birgit Erichson

After graduating from high school Birgit Erichson started to study the cello at the Musikhochschule in Köln. Thanks to a DAAD scholarship she was able to continue her studies with Professor Janos Starker at the Indiana University in Bloomington, USA. 

Next she took her final concert exam with Professor Klaus Storck at the Musikhochschule in Hanover and continued attending master classes under Professor Janos Starker. 

As a member of the internationally known Abbeg Trio since 1976, she has been giving concerts and teaching master classes in the USA, South America ( 6 tours ) , South Korea, Poland, Russia, Switzerland, Canada ( 3 tours ), Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Austria, South East Asia ( 2 tours ), Central Asia and China. 

In the meantime she has released with the Abegg Trio more than 30 CDs , which have all been highly praised by critics. 

She played in the chamber orchestra “Collegium Aureum” for years and tought 15 years “Chamber Music” at the Franz Liszt Musikhochschule in Weimar.  

Since 2014 she teaches as a Professor at the University of Münster “Chamber Music”. 

She has received many prizes and rewards for playing solo and with the Abegg Trio :  
First Prize :Solo -from  Gedok Berlin in 1978; with the Abegg Trio: Colmar 1977, Geneva 1977, Bonn 1979, Gold Medal Bordeaux 1981, Bernhard Sprengel Prize for Music Hanover 1986, Robert Schumann Prize Zwickau 1992, five times: Prize of German “Record Critics”, First Prize: Spring Festival Pyönyang North Korea, 2004. 

She recorded Brahms’s Clarinet Trio with solo musicians from Weimar for the MDR tv station. 

She can be often heard playing duo or trio on all the German and on many European radio stations.  Her new Shostakovich / Obst Trio CD was released in 2009 and was highly prised by critics. 

In 2010 she recorded a new Haydn CD with the Abegg Trio in the White Hall of Castle of Weimar. 

In September 2011 she went on a two-week long concert tour in China  with the Abegg Trio
Giving master classes as well. ( Peking, Shanghai, Ghuanzou etc. ) 
In 2018 she performed the “Winterreise” of Schubert with a pianist and a speaker in 2 concerts and 4 concerts with the Abegg Trio in Saudi Arabia.  

She plays a cello made by Andrea Castagneri in Turin in 1747.