ABOUT
Biography
Bryant Gozali is a cellist based in Jakarta, Indonesia, where he serves as Principal Cellist of the Jakarta Simfonia Orchestra and founding member of the Jakarta Trio. Alongside his performing career, he is the founder of Mendelssohn Academy and Little Mendelssohn, dedicated to the development of cello pedagogy and teacher formation in Indonesia.
He took up the cello at age nine under Professor Su Li at Xiamen University, before pursuing his studies in Singapore with Hermina Ilano of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. There he served as Principal Cellist of the Orchestra of the Music Makers under conductor Chan Tze Law. In 2010, he went to the United States to study with Yao Zhao, Principal Cellist of the San Diego Symphony, and won the concerto competition at the Great Wall International Music Academy — leading to a performance of the Saint-Saëns Cello Concerto No. 1 with the Great Wall Soloist Orchestra in 2012.
He earned his Bachelor of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2015 under the guidance of Stephen Geber, and his Master of Music from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in 2017 under the tutelage of the late Antonio Lysy. His studies were further enriched through work with Hans Jørgen Jensen,Paul Katz, and Philippe Muller — three cellists whose distinct schools of thought deepened his musical and interpretive sensibility.
Since returning to Indonesia, he has performed regularly at the Aula Simfonia Jakarta, where he made his solo debut with Haydn's Cello Concerto in C. Most recently as a soloist, he appeared with the Jakarta Simfonia Orchestra in 2022 performing Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme — one of the central works of the cello repertoire. With the Jakarta Trio — violinist Giovani Biga and pianist Carla Suharto — he has devoted himself to bringing the piano trio repertoire to Indonesian audiences with consistency and depth. He teaches at Universitas Pelita Harapan and maintains a private studio. His work at Mendelssohn Academy and Little Mendelssohn grows from a quiet belief in the importance of what is left behind — not in performance, but in the students and teachers who carry the work forward.
Bryant is also a committed advocate for new music. Through the Jakarta Trio, he has commissioned and premiered works by Indonesian composers, among them Arya Pugala Jotya Kitti — a composer and violinist in Indonesia — and Marisa Sharon Hartanto, composer-in-residence of the Bandung Philharmonic and one of Indonesia's most internationally recognised voices in contemporary composition.
Bryant Gozali performs on a cello by Ling Zhen Hua and a Cremona-made instrument by Luca Bastiani.