Kian Soltani

Cellist Kian Soltani first rose to notice as principal cellist of Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra before launching a thriving solo trajectory. Under contract with Deutsche Grammophon, he has proved unusually prolific in the studio, delivering seven albums for the label across a three-year span; the most recent, Schumann, appeared in 2024.

Born in Bregenz, Austria, on June 3, 1992, to an Iranian musical family, Soltani began cello studies at four and entered the Basel Music Academy at twelve under Ivan Monighetti. He later attended Kronberg Academy in Germany’s Taunus region on an Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation scholarship as part of its Young Soloists’ Program and also trained at Liechtenstein’s International Music Academy. At nineteen he made a striking debut in the Goldener Saal of Vienna’s Musikverein and soon afterward captured first prizes at the Paulo Cello Competition in Helsinki, the Karl Davidoff Competition in Latvia, and the Antonio Janigro Competition in Croatia.

Once established in Barenboim’s orchestra—an ensemble created to unite Israeli and Arab musicians—Soltani assumed a prominent role as soloist in the Beethoven Triple Concerto, Op. 56, with Barenboim at the piano during the group’s 2015 tour, appearing at the Lucerne and Salzburg Festivals as well as the Waldbühnen summer concert in Berlin. Those performances opened doors to further solo engagements at the BBC Proms and with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, and the Orchestre de Paris. He again took the spotlight in Strauss’s Don Quixote under Barenboim on the West-Eastern Divan’s 2017 tour and undertook an extensive series of concerts across Germany, Austria, and France in the 2017–2018 season.

Deutsche Grammophon signed him in 2017; his debut album, Home, followed early the next year, presenting music by Schubert and Schumann alongside his own folk-song arrangements and settings by Iranian composer Reza Vali. Soltani remained active with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra into the early 2020s while his independent career expanded through concerto engagements with the Munich Philharmonic, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony. In chamber settings he has joined Daniel and Michael Barenboim for trios and collaborated with Lahav Shani and Renaud Capuçon. The year 2020 brought two recordings: Beethoven’s piano trios with the Barenboims and Dvořák’s Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, with the Staatskapelle Dresden. Cello Unlimited, devoted to film music, followed in 2021. In 2024 he returned with Schumann, directing the Camerata Salzburg from the cello.