Gallery:

Relationship with art:

I firmly believe that art is the same as any other activity on earth that is created in a moment of awareness of what you want to contribute to the world. In the best case, it should aim to be useful to whatever goals one prioritizes in life, a major one for me being the sustainability of our planet and all living beings and in any way - working towards making the world a better place. Even though self-actualization is certainly amongst our needs, I try to distance myself from self-promotion in our profit-oriented society as I don't consider my person to be more special and interesting than anyone else and don't want to be seen in that way. I have therefore given up on the idea of being a professional artist as a job title and want to make art simply out of sheer necessity. 

To achieve something of meaning and importance, I believe you have to choose your time and energy very carefully and reflect on the world constantly. This may be one of the reasons why I am even more interested in topics that are urgently relevant for our existence right now than in art itself.

I believe it is in most cases not practical to separate art and the artist behind it from the person and world views as I believe it directly reflects your contribution to the world.

Future as a pianist:

As a pianist, I strive to create thought out concert programs that go into depth into a certain theme, category of music or composer. I want to give as much as possible to the audience and prefer long concert formats with space for experiments and unique ideas. Location or pay plays very little significance compared to an open-minded host and audience and if anyone knows these kinds of performance locations, I would love to hear from you.

I can absorb concert programs in a very short amount of time by the pieces I find fascinating and I want to put this ability to the best use and play concerts with a wide variety of different kinds of music. 

I see recordings as a huge possibility to share music in a completely free and accessible way. If anyone has experience with recording technology or a space with good acoustics, again, I would love to hear from you.

I plan on recording complete piano works by several of my favorite composers which I believe is only necessary when one really wants to bring a new and unique perspective and sees the possibility of enjoying one's own interpretation of a piece more than the already existing ones.

One specialization of mine is and will continue to be works of Slavic composers, especially Rachmaninoff, Scriabin and Prokofiev as well as French composers, especially Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and César Franck. I have found my affinity for German music unusually late but I also plan to honor this incredible legacy. Even though I have a wide variety of interest in almost any genre, I see myself working on pieces mostly from the 19th and 20th century as it resonates the most to my musical interests.

I feel no need to fit into concert etiquette I deem to be unnecessary. This includes strict concert attire, stiff posture, stoic face, the need to play everything from memory, repertoire choices that have to feel comfortable for the listener, fitting into the standard of interpretations for a certain piece or composer, being truthful to a limited way to notate music that I believe is not a contract to play it the same way for centuries to come.

What I do expect from the audience however is a respect for a shared room where any kind of noise can be a disturbance, especially phones and coughing. I also don't consent to repost photos or videos of me without my previous agreement that can also be removed afterwards.

My pianism:

My interpretations are heavily based on ideas from cinema, theatre, literature and often contain elements of spirituality, mythology, religion, philosophy and psychology.

In my playing I almost don't think about technique and music rules and try to free myself from everything and follow my intuition and what I consider to be right at the moment.

I believe the intention of playing a note is more important than how you touch the key and in a way I consider myself to be the writer and actor at the same time while making music.

My choice to play piano is a mix of a felt connection with the tone of the piano as my metaphorical voice and the huge choice of repertoire as it was the main instrument for many of the most prolific composers to compose for and they are many ways to transcribe almost any piece of music for this instrument.

I represent a free style of music making on the piano which is heavily influenced by pianists from the beginning of the recording era in the first half of the 20th century. 

Teaching and chamber music: 

I am willing to look past any other circumstances but I only take students who show a real interest in music and piano playing and who are willing to dedicate a significant amount of time and effort to it.

I choose my chamber music partners carefully as I need to have similar values of approaching music with the people I choose to dedicate myself to. Accompanying as a collaborative pianist depends mostly on the significance of the project.