Gisela Depkat

Gisela Depkat (born September 5, 1942) is a Canadian cellist and teacher. She has won multiple prizes at several international competitions and has performed as soloist with many symphony orchestras. Depkat has taught at the University of Texas at Austin, at Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Western Ontario, McGill University and the University of Ottawa.

In addition to her solo career, she was principal cello of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra and was a private teacher at a summer children's camp and worked for two music institutions in the mid-1980s.

Biography Early life and education On September 5, 1942, Depkat was born in Königsberg, Germany. In 1954, she and her parents settled in Port Arthur (today Thunder Bay) and became a naturalized Canadian in 1960. Depkat was educated in Canada, but returned to Germany in 1958 and matriculated to Hamburg's Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik, studying under A. Troester. In 1966, she became a diploma winner at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Depkat went on to receive first prize at the Boston National Instrumentalist Competition in 1967, She joined the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin in late 1967. Depkat won the 1969 CBC Talent Festival string section, and won first prize at the next year's festival.

In the 1977–78 concert season, Depkat appeared as soloist with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and had engagements with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Vancouver Chamber Orchestra and undertook a concert tour of California. In 1978 Depkat recorded the Sonata for Solo Cello of Zoltan Kodály. Depkat participated in public recording sessions for CBCF-FM in 1980.

Between 1975 and 1977, again from 1980 to 1982 and for a third period between 1985 and 1987, she taught at Wilfrid Laurier University. Depkat also taught at McGill University and the University of Ottawa from 1976 to 1982.

She was again principal cellist of the Kitchener-Waterloo Orchestra between August 1982 and 1984, and went on to become assistant principal at Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Depkat was principal cello of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra from 1988 to 1989. She also occupied the same role in Toronto for the Phantom of the Opera orchestra and again for part of the 1990–91 season for the Canadian Opera Company. Depkat was a teacher at a summer children's camp in Dwight, Ontario from 1981 to 1989. She worked for the Courtenay Youth Music Centre between 1985 and 1988 and the Nova Scotia String Music Camp in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia in 1988 and took part in that year's solo recitals at the International Workshop for Strings. Hoover went on to say about the cellist: "Also rare among musicians, she seems to play as if she is hearing the music for the first time, imparting a sense of wonder to her audience." Howard Klein of The New York Times described Depkat "as an athletic performer, rather than an aesthetic one."