His powerful performances combine intensity and mastery, making him one of the most distinguished cellists of our times. He performs with some of the most important orchestras, such as the Orchestre de Paris, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Münchner Philharmoniker, the Philharmonia, the London Philharmonic and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In North America, he has performed with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras, the Boston Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has collaborated with acclaimed conductors, such as Salonen, Zinman, Honeck, Dudamel, Rattle, Nagano, Nézet-Séguin and Eschenbach, among others.
A great interpreter of contemporary music, he has premiered over 30 concertos, including a work of Victoria Borisova-Ollas commissioned by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He delivered an extraordinary interpretation of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Cello Concerto, conducted by the composer at the Royal Festival Hall and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. With Klaus Mäkelä, he interpreted the concerto of Salonen with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Other premieres were Rautavaara's Towards the Horizon with the BBC Symphony/Storgårds and Haas' concerto with the Wiener Philharmoniker/Nott.
Born in Norway, he began his cello studies with his father and continued with Frans Helmerson, Heinrich Schiff, and Natalia Schakowskaya. Early in his career, he won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1982), the Cassadó Cello Competition in Florence (1983), the UNESCO Prize at the European Radio-Union Competition in Bratislava, and the Naumberg Competition in New York (1986).
He was presented in 1999 at Ibermúsica with the BBC Symphony and Sir Andrew Davis.