LYSANDER FRANCESCATTI, Violoncello
IRIS LICHTINGER, Piano
Lysander Francescatti, born in 2007, is a young cellist, singer, and pianist. He was a young student majoring in cello at the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts and, after graduating from St. Stephan High School, began his bachelor’s degree there. As a boy soloist with the Augsburg Cathedral Boys’ Choir, he sang, among other works, the world premiere of Enjott Schneider’s “MOZART-FRAGMENTE” for boys’ voice and chamber ensemble (2019) and gave numerous concert performances under conductors such as Kent Nagano, Sir Simon Rattle, and Daniel Harding.
On the cello, he studied under Hanno Simons (associate principal cellist of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra) and Prof. Edward King (Leopold Mozart College at the University of Augsburg) until he transferred to the HMTM.
He was a scholarship recipient on several occasions at the Young Academy for New Music in Munich (artistic director Minas Bourboudakis) and a cellist with JU(MB)LE X, the youth ensemble for new music in Bavaria under the direction of Johannes X. Schachtner. He was invited to Prof. Julius Berger’s “Junior Academy” and was thus also the youngest participant in Julius Berger’s “Zukunftsforum Cello” in October 2019. In June 2022, at the invitation of Giovanni Sollima, he performed as a soloist at the renowned Ravenna Festival and shared the stage with Massimo Polidori, principal cellist of La Scala in Milan, for a complete performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Six Suites for Violoncello. He was a scholarship recipient at the Detmold Summer Academy in 2023 and 2026, and in 2023 he was also a scholarship recipient for a master class with Maximilian Hornung through the SiemensArtProgram in cooperation with the ARD Music Competition. He was principal cellist of the Bavarian State Opera’s youth orchestra “attacca” (conducted by Allan Bergius) and a member of the Bavarian State Youth Orchestra, which performed as part of a partnership project with the BRSO under Sir Simon Rattle (2024) and Ivan Fischer (2026). He was a member of the orchestra for the Festival of Nations organized by the Bavarian Industry Association, with which he performed at the Festival of Nations in Bad Wörishofen alongside soloist Igor Levit. In the summers of 2024, 2025, and 2026, he was invited—following a video audition—to participate in the Young Euro Classic Festival at the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg with the New Generation Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Hugo Ticciati. In May 2026, under the mentorship of Julia Fischer, he performed at the “Stars and Rising Stars” festival at the Münchner Künstlerhaus. He gained valuable inspiration from master classes with Giovanni Sollima, Matthew Barley, and Viktoria Mullova at the Stauffer Academy in Cremona, as well as with Reinhard Latzko, Julian Arp, Jens Peter Maintz, and Wen Sinn Yang. Together with fellow cellists Heinrich Kremer and Viktor Gmelin, he founded TRIO AURA in 2025; he also performs regularly with MÀS QUE TANGO.