German cellist Christoph Henkel was born in Marburg 1946 and began playing the cello in 1953. He studied in Heidelberg and at the University of Indiana. In 1971 he was summoned to Illinois State University and the same year he won first prize in the 'Young Concert Artists' competition in New York. In 1973 he became the Professor of Cello at the Freiburg Conservatory in Germany and he made his London and New York debuts the same year. Since then he has toured the United States and Europe regularly.