Roman Patkoló

Roman Patkoló (born 6 February 1982 in Zilina, Slovakia) is a Slovak virtuoso double bass player.

Patkoló started to play the double bass when he was only 13. This is quite a young age to play the double bass which is a very large instrument. He soon showed his amazing talent and two years later won 1st prize in the National Slovak Competition.

Since then he has won many other competitions, including the International Double Bass Competition in 1999 in Iowa, USA. The following year he won the Johannes Matthias Sperger International Music Competition, which is the world’s most famous competition for double bass playing. Many other prizes followed. He finished his studies in Munich in 2005.

He got a scholarship from the foundation organized by the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. This foundation has encouraged several composers to write new solo works for the double bass. Mutter’s husband, the conductor Sir André Previn, composed a concerto for violin, double bass and orchestra, which was first performed in 2007 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Previn conducting and Mutter and Patkoló as soloists.

A notable recent collaboration is with composer Gediminas Gelgotas. Their performance of Gelgotas' Sanctifaction premiered in February 2018 with publications by the Gramophone Magazine and the Strad. In June 2018 both musicians performed live on BR Klassik.

Roman Patkoló was named as one of five instrumentalists of the year by Opus Klassik award (succeeding Echo Klassik) in Germany in 2018.

Patkoló is asked to perform all over the world. He now teaches at the University of Music Basel.