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Alexandre Castro-Balbi , born in Besançon in 1991, grew up in a musical family of Latin American origin. At the age of seven he received his first cello lessons from György Adam at the Conservatoire de Besançon. He graduated from the Conservatoire with the Diplôme d’Études Musicales in 2004 and continued his studies the following year with Marc Coppey at the Conservatoire de Paris. Two years later he began his studies at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris (CNSM) with Philippe Muller, from which he graduated with a master’s degree. He then deepened his studies with Prof. Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” Weimar.

After studying for a semester at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy in Berlin with Claudio Bohórquez as part of ERASMUS, he spent another semester with Clemens Hagen at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He also took part in numerous master classes, including with Steven Isserlis, László Fenyő, Lluís Claret, Sadao Harada, Peter Bruns, Raphae ͏̈l Pidoux and Xavier Gagnepain.

Alexandre Castro-Balbi has won several international prizes, including second prize and special prize at the Carlos Prieto International Cello Competition in Morelia (Mexico) and second prize at the Prince of Asturias Villa de Llanes competition in Spain. At the “International Competition Franz Schubert and Modern Music” in Graz, he was awarded second prize with his piano trio “Suyana” and the special prize for the best interpretation of a contemporary work.

At the age of 19, Castro-Balbi reached the semi-finals of the ARD music competition in Munich in 2010. He won scholarships from the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe, the Académie musicale de Villecroze and the Foundation for Young Musicians in Besançon. He has been invited to numerous international festivals, including the “Festival internacional de cello”, Lima (Peru), “Festival Prince of Asturias” (Spain), Festival “Music in the Mountains”, Colorado (USA), “Festival international de musique de Besançon” and the Festival of “Villa Musica”.

As a soloist he has performed with the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Jena Philharmonic, the Budapest Chamber Orchestra, the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Panamá, the Berlin-Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, the Orchester du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris, the Landesjugendorchester Peru and the Orchester Philharmonique de Besançon among well-known musicians Conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Myung-Whun Chung, Péter Csaba and Zsolt Nagy in the Berlin Philharmonic, the Salle Pleyel, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Munich Philharmonic, the Victoria Hall Geneva, the Teatro Nacional Madrid, the Musikverein Graz and im Solitaire Salzburg. In 2017 he played the Lalo Cello Concerto as a soloist with the Staatskapelle Weimar under Stefan Lano.

His chamber music partners include Lucas Debargue, Markus Groh, Natasha Prischipenko, Christophe Giovaninetti, Svetlin Roussev, Diana Ligeti, Mayu Kishima, Marc Bouchkov, Marie Chilemme, Adrien Boisseau, Regis Vincent, Lena Semenova, Guillaume Chilemme, David Castro-Balbi and Thibaud Epp .

Alexandre Castro-Balbi has been solo cellist of the German National Theater and the Staatskapelle Weimar since 2015.