Michael Polyzoides

Michael Polyzoides was born in Graz and grew up in Cologne. He completed his studies with Michael Sanderling and Bonian Tian with honors in Frankfurt am Main. At the same time he studied chamber music with his piano partner James Guey with Angelika Merkle. Other influential teachers were Heinrich Schiff, Han-An Liu and David Geringas.

He was the winner of the 23rd competition of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, for which a master cello by G. Guadagnini (ca. 1780) was made available to him. He was also a prizewinner at the international chamber music festival “Allegro Vivo”, winner of the “Martin Hornstein Interpretationspreis” and multiple prizewinner at national level in the solo and chamber music category of the German competition “jugend musiziert”.

As a soloist he played with the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Philharmonic Orchestra Brehmerhaven, the Orchestra “Il Concerto Accademico”, Murcia, the Loh-Orchester Sondershausen. In addition to solo projects, he devotes himself intensively to contemporary music and chamber music.

His path to the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, of which he is a member today, led through the Opera and Museum Orchestra in Frankfurt am Main and the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne. He has also been a teacher for cello and chamber music at the Internationale Musiktage Rohrbach-Berg since 2017.

He gave concerts as a soloist and chamber musician in the Cologne Philharmonic, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Wiener Musikverein, Gasteig Munich and in the Konzerthaus Vienna, as well as in Greece, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Spain and China. His concerts have been broadcast on German, Austrian, Greek and Czech TV and radio.