
Biography
Kolja Joseph Gibbs, born 1999, is a German/Australian classical guitarist who began his career in London in 2015 and has been active as a performer, arranger and teacher ever since.
His concert repertoire aims to offer something new to all audience members. So one might encounter a varied program of lost treasures by forgotten composers such as Simon Molitor, as well as riveting contemporary gems by Bernard Piris or Georg Schmitz, all interspersed with proven classics ranging from Bach to Piazzolla. Own arrangements of works by Schumann, Schönberg, Satie and Purcell also frequently appear.
An active and ardent chamber musician, Kolja has performed with flautists, saxophonists, guitar duos/trios/quartets, most notably the Meridian Guitar Quartet, with whom he together won the 2022 Carne Trust Chamber Competition, and Kolja has also taken part in collaborative performances with dancers. He continues to perform with violinist Samuel Cutajar as Duo Hafdar, which has enjoyed performances in the UK and Malta.
Under the tutelage of Graham Anthony Devine, he completed a Bachelor of Music in Performance with first degree honours at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in 2022. During his studies there he received the first prize for a performance of Bach's Violin Sonata BWV1001 in the Historically Informed Performance Competition 2019 and is recipient of the Vivien Joseph Prize for Strings 2018 and the John Thompson String Ensemble Prize 2020. He has taken part in masterclasses with artists including Paul Galbraith, Odaline de la Martinez, Xuefei Yang, Allan Neave, Alvarro Pierri and Roberto Aussel.
He currently lives near Aachen, Germany, and is completing a Master of Music at the Conservatorium Maastricht in the class of Prof. Carlo Marchione.
Kolja plays a cedar-top guitar built by Casemiro Lozano in 2006.