Pauline Stephan, born in Unna in Germany, comes from a family of musicians and received her first piano lessons at the age of five. Two years later, she discovered her love for the cello and then took lessons at the Dortmund Music School for several years.
During this time she won prizes in various competitions such as Jugend musiziert and the Lions Club International Music Competition before Prof. Matias de Oliveira took notice of her and taught her in the following years. After graduating from high school, she then studied in his class at the Musikhochschule Münster, where she passed her exams for the artistic and pedagogical Bachelor of Music in 2020 and 2021 with very good grades.
During these first years of study she also received important artistic impulses from Prof. Enrico Bronzi, Prof. Marcio Caneiro, Arthur Hornig, Prof. Jan Ickert and Prof. Gabriel Schwabe.
Then, in 2021, she began a master’s course in chamber music at the Conservatorio Statale di Musica di Torino with pianist Antonio Valentino (Trio Debussy) and since then she has been studying simultaneously in the cello class of Luca Magariello (principal cellist Orchestra of Italian Switzerland), first at the Milano Music Master School and, since 2022, at the Accademia di Musica di Pinerolo. In 2023, she completed her chamber music studies with the highest grade and honours. In October 2023, she began an performance master’s degree at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz in the cello class of Prof. Vashti Hunter.
Gor several years Pauline Stephan is on the road both in orchestral projects such as at the Theater Münster or with an international chamber orchestra in Switzerland, but also as a soloist with chamber orchestras and especially with her own solo chamber concerts in duo with guitar (Duo Giussani with guitarist Julian Richter), with piano and with various chamber music ensembles not only on European stages:
In Croatia at the „Bachtage Split“, in France at the „Des Heures Musiscales“ and the „Les Clès du Classique“, in Italy at the „North Lake Como Festival“, the „Incontri Musicali Mediterranei Crotone“ at the Pythagoras Museum Crotone, at Palazzo GiustoVerona, in Levico Terme and at the Hofburg Brixen, in Switzerland at the „Festival d’Anniviers“, in Mallorca at the „Festival Son Bono“, in Teneriffa at the „Festival Aguere“ in Brazil at the „Festival de Violoncelos de Ouro Branco“ and in Germany at Seeon Monastery, Schloss Münster, Haus Opherdicke, Emil Schumacher Museum Hagen, where she took over the artistic direction of the “Young European Classics” series in 2023. She regularly plays as a soloist and chamber musician at the “Celloherbst am Hellweg” festival and has been a member of the „12 Hellweger Cellisten“ for over 10 years, with whom she has also performed as a soloist and recorded a CD in 2019.
The Westfälische Nachrichten wrote about the Duo Giussani:
„Listening pleasure, feast for the ears … these words only inadequately describe the sensory delights that listeners can experience at the Duo Giussani’s concerts… The artists offer music as if from another star. The two artists celebrate a musical feast that led through the highs and lows of compositional ingenuity and an almost celebrated art of instrumental mastery.“
www.duo-giussani.de
She is also particularly committed to supporting musical projects for children. For example, she regularly participates in children’s concerts such as the „Carnival of the Animals,“ „The Violin Maker of Cremona“ or „A Castle Full of Music,“ bringing the diverse and exciting world of music closer to children.
Since 2018, Pauline Stephan has been a scholarship holder of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation „Live Music Now“
and in 2022 she was awarded a scholarship by the Italian government for her musical achievements. She recently won a prize in the chamber music category at the eighth Nilo Peraldo Bert Competition in Biella, Italy.