Benjamin Kruithof

The Luxembourgish cellist Benjamin Kruithof is the winner of the 2022 Georges Enescu competition in Bucharest (Romania). The critic Alexander Hall from the British music site “Bachtrack” describes Benjamin’s playing as “noble, singing, beautiful”.

Oves the past years Benjamin has successfully demonstrated his talent in a myriad national and international competitions. In 2020 he won the first prize, the audience award and the prize for the best interpretation of the assignment composition at the “Cello Biennale Competition” in Amsterdam. Moreover, he is a prize winner of the Pablo Casals Award in Spain (special award), the Gabrielli competition in Berlin (second prize), the Anne and Françoise Groben Grand Prix in Luxembourg (first prize and audience award), the Flame Competition in Paris (first prize and special prize), the Leopold Bellan International Competition in Paris (first prize and audience award) as well as  the International Knopf competition in Düsseldorf.

As a soloist Benjamin has performed with orchestras such as, the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra (OPL), the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, the Luxembourg Chamber Orchestra, the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie Herford, as well as the Phion Orchestra and played in prestigious venues such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Gasteig in Munich, Kings Place in London, Guangzhou Opera House, the Philharmonie  Luxembourg-City, Salle Cortot in Paris, Athenaeum in Bucharest.

In the forthcoming season 2023/24 Benjamin will make his debut with the West-Eastern chamber orchestra at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest, the Solistes Européens under the direction of Christoph König at the Philharmonie  Luxembourg and the Liechtenstein Sinfonie Orchester conducted by Yaron Traub.

Benjamin is also very active as a chamber musician. He has participated in various chamber music academies as for instance Seiji Ozawa Academy (2021,2022) and in the summer of 2023 he will play at festivals such as Krzyzowa Music, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Grachtenfestival Amsterdam.

During his career Benjamin has played with artists such as Hartmut Hänchen, Tito Munos, Conrad van Alphen, Adrian Adlam, Vadym Kholodenko, Alena Baeva and Vahan Mardirossian.

In February 2020 he recorded his first CD “Russian Mood” with the orchestra Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie Herford for the label Ars Production. For this recording he was nominated in 4 categories of the “OPUS KLASSIK 2022”.

Benjamin Kruithof was born in Luxembourg into a family of musicians and started playing the cello at the age of 5 at the “Conservatoire du Nord” with Raju Vidali. In recent years Benjamin studied with Professors such as Mirel Iancovici (Conservatorium Maastricht), Katharina Deserno and Maria Kliegel (Hfmt Köln). Since 2017 Benjamin is a student of Prof. Jens-Peter Maintz at the University of the Arts in Berlin.

Benjamin is currently playing a very fine and rare instrument made by the Italian violin maker Bartolomeo Cristofori, Florence c. 1710, a generous loan by the Stretton Society. Moreover, he plays with a bow made by the French bow maker F.X. Tourte.