Slovenčina
1959 – 1966 primary arts school of Miloš Ruppeldt in Bratislava (with Vladimír Šálek)
1966 – 1972 Conservatory in Bratislava (Gustáv Večerný)
1972 – 1977 Conservatory of Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky in Moscow
1977 – 1980 Conservatory of Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky in Moscow (with Mikhail Khomitser), doctorate studies in Moscow (Feygin)
1975 course in chamber music, Paris (Joseph Calvet)
since 1978 continuously teaching at the Academy of Performing Arts (1987 associate professor, 1994 Professor), since 1990 head of the Dept. of orchestral instruments
“Jozef Podhoranský is a creative and ever-searching type of a performer. Never satisfied with what his achievements, he keeps striving for higher quality. With age increasing and as his experience build-up, he is able to translate the composer’s intentions in an ever more accurate way. His performances, always characterised by sharp style, draw especially on high musical intelligence, rich and creative fantasy, elegance of performing, sense for dramatic density, highly cultured tone, and last but not least, on his solid technical background. He is equally exquisite as a philosophical meditator or as a ravishing virtuoso. His elements of performing mastery always come in a careful and tasteful dosage. Podhoranský is endowed with a rare sense of choosing the right degree of personal contribution, he never exaggerates. He is always of great inspiration for his partners, be it in a duo or a chamber ensemble, while the final concept always bears his specific imprint. He can make use of a wide range of dynamic undulations, as well as of those of colour, rhythm and agogics, of numerous shades in humour. Like any other prominent artist, Podhoranský is able to unite them in a unified and impressive music line.”
Podhoranský’s soloist repertory starts with the baroque masters and reaches all stylistic periods, with both concert and sonata pieces abundantly represented (some authors such as Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Dvořák are fully covered). His performances and premieres of Slovak cello pieces have also won acclaim; some of them have even been dedicated directly to him. His artistic and teaching career, spanning for over a quarter-century also includes performances in chamber ensembles, mostly in string quartets.
As an educator, Podhoranský draws on methodology of the Russian cello school, enriching it by principles from other methodologies and especially by his knowledge of a soloist of chamber music performer. He has been also publishing on methodology of teaching the basics of cello playing and has also done a revision Slovak works on cello. His lectures focused on the need of a modern teaching approach which heeds the student’s psychology. He was the vice-president of the Slovak section of the European String Teachers Association (ESTA) from 1994. Since 1989, he has been leading international performers’ master classes in Piešťany and also was invited to prominent similar events abroad, namely in Pécs, Csongrád and Baja (Hungary), Oberschützen (Austria), in Klagenfurt as a part of the New Music Forum (1992), he often sits in juries of Slovak and international performers’ contests. In 1990, he was elected vice-president of the Slovak Music Union, while in1994 he became member of the board of trustees of the Slovak Concert Artists Association, part of the Slovak Music Union. He directs performers’ master classes at the Conservatory in Žilina since their start in 1996.