Raphaela Gromes

Among Germany's leading cellists from her age group, Raphaela Gromes joined the Sony Classical roster in 2016 and frequently appears alongside pianist Julian Riem.

Born in Munich on March 16, 1991, she grew up with cellist parents Wilhelm Gromes and Astrid Hedler-Gromes. She began lessons at four under her mother's guidance. Her parents performed together as the Nymphenburger Celloduo, and at age seven Raphaela started appearing with them for encores and similar pieces. Her first public concert took place in 2005, when she played Friedrich Gulda's Cello Concerto. The next year she entered the Musikhochschule Leipzig for lessons with Peter Bruns and attended the Camerloher-Gymnasium in Freising for her general studies. In 2010 she transferred to the Musikhochschule München to work with Wen-Sinn Yang, then continued at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna under Reinhard Latzko. Support from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and additional sponsors assisted her training.

Alongside the familiar cello literature of Dvořák, Elgar, and Saint-Saëns, her programs embrace lesser-known works by Luigi Boccherini as well as pieces by living composers Dominik Giesriegl, Valentin Bachmann, and Mario Bürki. She formed the Duo Servais in 2011 with violinist Amelie Böckheler and, the following year, established a regular partnership with pianist Julian Riem. The latter duo issued its first recording in 2014 on Farao Classics, presenting cello sonatas by Mendelssohn and Richard Strauss. After signing with Sony Classical in 2016, Gromes and Riem brought out Serenata Italiana the next year, devoted to late-Romantic Italian repertoire. They toured South Korea in 2018. Also that year she released Hommage à Rossini with the WDR Funkhausorchester, and she has continued to issue further Sony Classical albums, among them the 2021 recital Imagination.