Claes Gunnarsson has toured worldwide as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, and teacher. He had an early breakthrough in his career, debuting as a soloist in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, after which he was invited to become their principal cellist, a position he has held since 1999.
Claes has given solo concerts in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony Hall, Seoul Arts Center, and Singapore Symphony Hall, and has appeared at leading international festivals such as La Folle Journée in Nantes, Music@Menlo in California, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, and Yuri Temirkanov’s Winter Festival in St. Petersburg, collaborating with conductors like Neeme Järvi, Kent Nagano, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Alexander Lazarev, Mikhail Jurowski, Christian Zacharias, and Christopher Warren-Green.
As an active chamber musician, Claes has worked with violinists Leonidas Kavakos and Nikolaj Znaider, pianists Christian Zacharias, Roland Pöntinen, and Hélène Grimaud, and has performed for 20 years with his colleagues Sara Trobäck and Per Lundberg in the piano trio Trio Poseidon. During these years, they have toured extensively both nationally and internationally and made a critically acclaimed recording of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Brahms’ Double Concerto with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Neeme Järvi on the Chandos Records label. On the same label, he has also made successful recordings of Weinberg’s Cello Fantasy and Cello Concerto with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Thord Svedlund, the latter awarded a Diapason d’Or by the French music magazine Diapason.
Claes is also represented on the BIS label with the premiere recording of Albert Schnelzer’s Cello Concerto. He has been invited as a guest principal cellist with several orchestras, including the Oslo Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and London Symphony Orchestra. Claes teaches at the Academy of Music and Drama at the University of Gothenburg. He plays a 1707 David Tecchler cello, generously loaned by the Järnåker Foundation.
Frontside has existed since 2019 and is largely driven by volunteer efforts, but we are highly dependent on additional financial sponsors and fundings. All contributions are used to engage fantastic musicians, rents of venues and all other things that make the festival a magical experience.
Welcome as a member of the Frontside Chamber Music Association.
As a member, you will continuously receive our newsletters and advance information about tickets.
If you wish to donate some extra money, it would be greatly appreciated! You will then belong to our Tone-donating members and will continuously receive our newsletters and advance information about tickets, as well as be offered a glass of sparkling wine in a unique meeting with our artists during the festival days.
If you wish to sponsor the festival with larger amounts, we are extremely grateful. You will continuously receive our newsletters and advance information about tickets, as well as be offered a glass of sparkling wine in a unique meeting with our artists during the festival days, and your name will be published (upon agreement) on our website.
Our membership register contains information about names and addresses, in some cases also phone numbers and/or email addresses. The register is used only for sending out membership information. The association will not sell or otherwise share personal information with any other party. Upon leaving the association, the information will be deleted and will only remain in the records that we are required to keep for seven years according to accounting laws. For further information or if you wish to be removed from the register, please contact our treasurer, Catrin Bernsro: catrin@bernsro.se
