Joël Marosi was born in Zurich and received his first cello lessons from Nancy Chumachenko. He then studied at the Basel Academy of Music with Heinrich Schiff and at the Cologne Conservatory with Claus Kanngiesser, as well as at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Arto Noras. Masterclasses given by Leon Fleischer, Isaac Stern, Yo Yo Ma, János Starker and Walter Levin have enriched his playing. He has won numerous awards, including first prize at the Swiss Youth Music Competition and the Venoge Competition in Lausanne, as well as the Weizacker Prize at the Mendelssohn Competition in Berlin.
Since 1999, Joël Marosi has played regularly as solo cellist with the Bern Camerata and the Salzburg Camerata. From 2000 to 2003, he was principal cello of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, and since 2005 he has held the same position with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. Since 2019, Joel Marosi has also been principal cello of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra.
He has been invited to perform as soloist with this ensemble, as well as with the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, the Hannoversche Orchestervereinigung, I Fiamminghi, the Athens State Symphony Orchestra and the Prague Chamber Orchestra. He has appeared as soloist under the baton of Heinrich Schiff, Ton Koopman, Christian Zacharias, Hannu Lintu, Christoph-Mathias Mueller, Mario Venzago, Loukas Karytinos and Thomas Zehetmair.
Joël Marosi is a passionate chamber musician. His partners include the cellists Patrick Demenga and Christian Poltera, the clarinettists Dimitri Askenazy, Davide Bandierin and Fabio di Casola, and the violinists Isabelle van Keulen, Christian Altenberger, Gabor Takacs and Ilja Gringolts. A founding member of the Zürcher Klaviertrio, he has taken this ensemble around the world, to Carnegie Hall in New York and London’s Wigmore Hall. Since 2010, he has been a member of the group 4 Cellists, which regularly tours Asia. In 2019, he joins the Schweizer Klaviertrio /Swiss Piano Trio, a group whose international reputation has been built up over more than twenty years of existence.
Joël Marosi records for the Claves, Harmonia Mundi, Brillant Classics and Sony Asia labels. Recent and forthcoming releases include piano trios by Frühling and Zemlinsky, as well as Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du Temps for Brillant Classics, the album Prologue with the 4 Cellists for Sony Asia, and a programme of French music for flute and piano for Prospero Classic (with flutist Sarah Rumer and pianist Ulrich Koella). An album of the complete works of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn for cello and piano was released in autumn 2020 on First Hand Records, with Ester Walker on piano.
Joël Marosi passes on his experience and passion in Masterclasses given in Europe and Asia. From 2019 to 2021 he will be professor ad interim of chamber music at the Haute école de musique Genève – Neuchâtel. In 2023, he begins a new collaboration with the Underground Youth Orchestra in Athens, where he gives masterclasses and coaching sessions for young musicians.