ETHICS CODE
the jury
Our jurors are highly committed to promoting young talent. The musical, pianistic and personal development of the participants is equally important to them, as they are aware of the importance of personality, charisma and self-confidence for an artistic statement.
Artistic design therefore plays an important role alongside other diverse assessment criteria. The jury is characterized by transparency in the assessment, including in the digital preliminary round, a differentiated points system, integrity, fairness and efforts to achieve the greatest possible fairness and objectivity. Pupils of the jury members are therefore not allowed to take part in the competition.
The judges approach the piano playing of each individual with joy, dedication and attention. Their interaction with the participants is characterized by appreciation, interest, respect and a high pedagogical standard. They see the competition as a collaboration and joint work on the playing of the young talents.
In addition, individual discussions between the jury and the participants, their parents and teachers provide constructive, guiding and motivating feedback. A warm, trusting and positive atmosphere is very important to the judges!
The jury welcomes the international nature of the competition. Music as the common language of mankind overcomes borders and connects cultures. Every participant in the competition is equally welcome regardless of gender, nationality and religion.
The jury is very aware of its great responsibility and is passionately committed to these goals. It maintains a close and cooperative exchange with the competition organizer in order to constantly reflect on its work. As a point of contact for the young pianists, their parents and teachers, it is highly interested in the successful participation of each individual. A competition without losers, where the focus is on learning from each other and sharing experiences.
The jury wishes all pianists much joy and success!
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Matthias Kirschnereit is a "poet at the piano". Wherever he performs, he captivates listeners with his gift for tracking down and conveying the richness of feeling, the narrative expression and thus the human traits in the music. His current CD "Concertant" with all of Robert Schumann's works for piano and orchestra has been enthusiastically welcomed by the specialist press.
Matthias Kirschnereit performs worldwide with leading orchestras such as the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Het Residentie Orkest Den Haag, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Camerata Salzburg and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. In the 2019/20 season, he will make his debut with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with the conductors Hartmut Haenchen, Marcus Bosch, Christopher Hogwood, Andrew Manze, Sándor Végh, Michael Sanderling, Frank Beermann, Alexander Liebreich, Yuri Temirkanov and Alondra de la Parra. His chamber music partners include Christian Tetzlaff, Carolin Widmann, Sharon Kam, Alban Gerhardt, Lena Neudauer, Daniel Müller-Schott, Julian Steckel, Felix Klieser and Nils Mönkemeyer.
An extensive discography has documented Matthias Kirschnereit's work since 1989. His complete recording of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano concertos has set standards, and he received an ECHO Klassik award for the world premiere recording of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's reconstructed E minor Piano Concerto. Kirschnereit also devotes himself to unusual repertoire; he has recorded piano concertos by Julius Röntgen and Handel's organ concertos in his own piano version. "Kirschnereit deserves all the praises coming to him these days!" praised the London Gramophone Magazine his solo CDs with piano works by Robert Schumann ("Scenes") and Franz Schubert ("Wanderer Fantasy"). And Fono-Forum called his CD "Lieder ohne Worte" "unrivaled". The recording was a novelty, as Kirschnereit was the first to unite all the "Lieder ohne Worte" by the siblings Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel in a complete show. His Brahms album "FAE - Frei aber einsam" was described by WDR as the "outstanding Brahms recording of recent years".
Matthias Kirschnereit has been Artistic Director of the Gezeitenkonzerte since 2012. Every year, numerous artists of international renown accept his invitation to East Frisia and delight a steadily growing audience.
He passes on his experience and artistic ideals to future generations as a professor at the Rostock University of Music and Drama. He is also involved in the Rhapsody in School initiative and the TONALi cultural project.
Christian A. Pohl completed his piano studies at the Freiburg University of Music with Felix Gottlieb, a student of Alexander Goldenweiser and Emil Gilels. During his youth, he was taught by Markus Stange, a student of Jürgen Uhde, and attended master classes with Vitaly Margulis and Seymour Bernstein.
He performs both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. His chamber music partners have included Felix Gottlieb, Christoph Henkel and Daishin Kashimoto, as well as members of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Vienna Philharmonic.
Christian A. Pohl taught at the conservatories in Freiburg and Stuttgart before being appointed Professor of Piano and Piano Methodology at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Academy of Music and Theater in Leipzig in 2009 at the age of 34. His publications on piano methodology have been published by Schott/Mainz, Breitkopf & Härtel/Wiesbaden and HudsonRiverPress/New York. He regularly acts as a juror at national and international music competitions. He has been Director of the International Mendelssohn Academy Leipzig since 2012 and Artistic Director of the International Piano Academy Murrhardt since 2021.
Concerts, master classes and seminars have taken him to numerous German cities as well as Spain, France, the Czech Republic, Egypt, China, Japan and Switzerland. In recent years, he has accepted invitations to Munich, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt, Hanover, Zwickau, Chemnitz, Bern, Vienna, Madrid, Bilbao, Zaragoza, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Osaka, Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan, among other renowned institutions such as the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, the Jerusalem Music Academy and the Central Conservatory Beijing.
His students have won prizes at international piano competitions. He is a representative for the instrumentarium, was a member of the admissions committee and the senate and was head of the piano/conducting department at the Leipzig University of Music and Performing Arts for six years.
He was nominated for the Saxon Teaching Prize in 2014 and has been an author at Edition Peters since 2017. In spring 2022, "Klaviermethodik" was published after 20 years of development.
Prof. Claudia Schellenberger gives concerts at home and abroad, she has been a guest at the at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Frankfurt Festival at the Alte Oper, the Summer Festival in the EXPO Pavilion, at Solitude Palace, BASF concerts in Ludwigshafen, Bad Homburg Palace Concerts, concerts in the HR-Sendesaal Frankfurt, Kassel City Hall, Kaisersaalkonzerte Ottobeuren, VillaMusica concerts in Edenkoben, at the Harvard Musical Association in Boston and many more.She has toured throughout Germany with the Dvorak Symphony Orchestra Prague. Numerous radio recordings, live recordings and portraits have been made for various broadcasters in Germany and the USA. As an Erasmus lecturer, she has taught at the conservatories in Perugia, Amsterdam, Izmir and Stockholm, and gave masterclasses at the Walnut Hill School in Boston and at the NEC (New England Conservatory) in 2010. She was the founder and artistic director of the "Piano-Akademie Königstein e.V.". C. S. was a member of the jury at the "Jugend musiziert" and the "Steinway Competition".
C. Schellenberger has been a "Steinway artist" since 2008.
C. Schellenberger won prizes at various piano competitions and received scholarships from the "Richard Wagner Association" and "Rotary". At the age of fifteen, she was a student of Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Hanover University of Music, after graduating from high school she studied with him, Prof. M. Dörrie and Prof. K. Bergemann. After graduating from the MH Hanover, she completed the concert class at the Musikhochschule in Vienna with Prof. Noel Flores. There she graduated after only two years with the concert exam. She then studied in the solo class of Prof. Joachim Volkmann at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt. In 1990 she was appointed piano teacher in Mainz.
Parallel to her university studies, she took part in masterclasses with Rudolf Buchbinder, Malcolm Frager, Jakob Lateiner and Vitaly Margulis. She was a finalist at the international piano competitions in Vercelli and Brussels.
Her 2010 and 2012 solo piano CDs "Danzas Argentinas" and "Poetische Stimmungsbilder" by A. Dvorak (both released on the "AVI" label) were both awarded the "SupersonicAward" by the Belgian music magazine Pizzicato. Her CD "Russian impressions", produced by Hänssler in 2019, received great international praise and was included in the Lufthansa Entertainmet program in 2020.
Prof. C. S. has been teaching at the Mainz University of Music since 1990.
Ulrike Danne-Feldmann, born in Aachen in 1963 and raised in Schmallenberg/Hochsauerland, was already influenced in her youth by a very intensive and varied contact with classical music. As a soloist, she played flute concertos by Vivaldi and Telemann with orchestra, harpsichord concertos by Bach and Graun and took part as a cellist in orchestras and string quartets.
As a winner of the Jugend musiziert competition for solo piano and chamber music (regional and state level), she has gained a wealth of competition experience. She sang in choirs for many years, including the Pro Musica Köln vocal ensemble at the Cologne University of Music, and has experience in choral and ensemble conducting.
This wide-ranging musical education laid the foundation for her artistry as a pianist and her love of chamber music in particular. She accompanied instrumentalists on the piano from an early age and studied for many years at the Cologne University of Music in the classes of Prof. Berta Volmer (violin), Prof. Rainer Moog (viola) and the Amadeus Quartet, among others. She regularly performs as a duo with her brother Christoph Danne, violinist with the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra.
She completed her studies with an artistic maturity examination (1993 Musikhochschule Detmold with Prof. Nerine Barrett), a diploma in instrumental pedagogy (1989 Musikhochschule Köln with Prof. Karin Merle) and a diploma in early and basic musical education (1991 Musikhochschule Köln). She has given piano recitals in Germany, France and Italy and has been a soloist in several piano concerts. She completed her studies by taking part in master classes (with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Astrid Schmidt-Neuhaus, among others). In recent years, she has become increasingly interested in new and modern ways of presenting concerts and enjoys giving piano recitals and chamber music concerts in the form of discussion concerts.
She has always been fascinated by the didactics and methodology of piano playing and regularly took part in piano pedagogical training courses from 1993 to 2023, including with Prof. Sybille Cada, Prof. Herbert Wiedemann, Prof. Inge Rosar, the EPTA and various music pedagogy conferences.
She is a member of the Deutscher Tonkünstlerverband Frankfurt (FTKB) and the EPTA (European Piano Teachers Association). She is also a jury member of the Bitburg Piano Competition. Since 2022 she has been artistic director of the "International Piano Competition for Young Pianists Kronberg".
