Mirko Dorner

Mirko Dorner was born on 7 March 1921 in Budapest, grew up in Belgrade and died on 2 May 2004 in Essen. His training took him from the Belgrade Conservatory to the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome to Enrico Mainardi, with whom he took his diploma in 1942. He won the competition in Prague in 1946, the Geneva Competition in 1949 and the Viotti Competition in Vercelli in 1952. After a professorship in Belgrade from 1945 he became principal cellist of the Berliner Philharmoniker and a professor in Berlin in 1954, and in 1965 a professor at the Folkwang-Hochschule in Essen. As a composer he also worked for dance theatre; his music for Pina Bausch’s “Im Wind der Zeit” is documented in 1969. Between 1975 and 1978 he developed the demountable travel cello Practicello; he also exhibited pictures and mobiles and from 1970 created wooden sculptures. He plays cello on the Cybele album Günther Becker: Collected Works – Electroacoustic Music (2004).