Jury - International Piano Competition for Young Pianists Kronberg

www.matthias.kirschnereit.de
A "poet at the piano" is Matthias Kirschnereit according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Wherever he performs, he captivates listeners with his gift for tracking down and conveying the richness of feeling, narrative expression and thus the human traits in music. His current CD "Concertant" with the complete works of Robert Schumann for piano and orchestra was 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 hr Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with 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 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 recorded Handel's organ concertos in his own piano version. "Kirschnereit deserves all the praises coming to him these days!" the London Gramophone Magazine praised his solo CDs with piano works by Robert Schumann ("Scenen") and Franz Schubert ("Wanderer Fantasie"). And his CD "Lieder ohne Worte" was called "unrivaled" by Fono-Forum. The recording was a novelty, because Kirschnereit was the first to unite all the "Lieder ohne Worte" by the siblings Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel in one complete set. His Brahms album "FAE - Frei aber einsam" was described by WDR as the "outstanding Brahms recording of recent years".

Matthias Kirschnereit has been the artistic director of the Gezeitenkonzerte since 2012. Every year, numerous artists of international standing accept his invitation to East Frisia and inspire 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 Theatre. He is also involved in the Rhapsody in School initiative and the TONALi cultural project.

Prof. Christian A. Pohl

www.christian-pohl.com
Christian A. Pohl completed his piano studies at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg 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 in chamber music. 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 Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig in 2009 at the age of 34. Piano methodical publications appeared until then with Schott/Mainz, Breitkopf & Härtel/Wiesbaden and HudsonRiverPress/New York. As a juror, he regularly participates in 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 take him not only to numerous German cities but also to 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, Berne, Vienna, Madrid, Bilbao, Saragossa, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Osaka, Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan, among others, to such renowned institutions as the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, the Jerusalem Music Academy and the Central Conservatory Beijing. His students win prizes at international piano competitions. He is a commissioner for the instrumental faculty, was a member of the admissions committee and the senate, and headed the piano/conducting department at the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre for six years.

In 2014 he was nominated for the Saxon Teaching Award, and since 2017 he has been an author at Edition Peters. In spring 2022, after 20 years of development, "Piano Methodology" was published.

Prof. Claudia Schellenberger

www.musik.uni-mainz.de
Prof. Claudia Schellenberger gives concerts at home and abroad, she was among others She has performed at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Frankfurt Festival at the Alte Oper, the Summer Festival at the EXPO Pavilion, at Schloss Solitude, BASF Concerts in Ludwigshafen, Bad Homburg Castle Concerts, concerts at the HR-Sendesaal Frankfurt, Stadthalle Kassel, Kaisersaalkonzerte Ottobeuren, VillaMusica Concerts in Edenkoben, at the Harvard Musical Association in Boston, and many others.She has toured throughout Germany with the Dvorak Symphony Orchestra Prague. Numerous radio recordings, life recordings and portraits were made for various broadcasting companies in Germany and the USA. As an "Erasmus Lecturer" she taught at the conservatories in Perugia, Amsterdam, Izmir and Stockholm, master classes C. S. conducted among others in 2010 in Boston at the "Walnut Hill School" and at the NEC (New England Conservatory). She was the founder and artistic director of the "Piano-Akademie Königstein e.V.". As a juror C. S. participated in "Jugend musiziert" and in the "Steinway Competition".

Since 2008 C. Schellenberger is a "Steinway-artist".

C. Schellenberger became a prize-winner of various piano competitions and received scholarships from "Richard Wagner Association" and "Rotary". At the age of fifteen she became a student of Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Hanover Music Academy, and after graduating from high school she studied with him, Prof. M. Dörrie and Prof. K. Bergemann. After graduating from the MH Hannover, she attended the concert class at the Academy of Music in Vienna with Prof. Noel Flores. There she graduated after only two years with the concert exam. Afterwards she studied in the solo class of Prof. Joachim Volkmann at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt. In 1990 she was appointed as piano lecturer in Mainz.

Parallel to her university studies, she participated in master classes given by Rudolf Buchbinder, Malcolm Frager, Jakob Lateiner and Vitaly Margulis. She became a finalist of 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) each won the "SupersonicAward" from the Belgian music magazine Pizzicato. Her 2019 CD "Russian impressions" produced by Hänssler received high international praise and was included in the Lufthansa Entertainmet program in 2020.

Prof. C. S. has been teaching at the Hochschule für Musik Mainz since 1990.

Ulrike Danne-Feldmann

www.ulrike-danne-feldmann.de
Ulrike Danne-Feldmann, born in 1963 in Aachen 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 participated as a cellist in orchestras and string quartets.
As a prizewinner of Jugend musiziert in piano solo and chamber music (regional and state level) she gained rich competition experience. For many years she sang in choirs, among others in the vocal ensemble Pro Musica Köln of the Musikhochschule Köln and has experience in choral and ensemble conducting.

This broad musical education laid the foundation for her pianistic art and her love especially for chamber music. She accompanied instrumentalists on the piano from an early age and corrected for many years at the Cologne Academy of Music in the classes of Prof. Berta Volmer (violin), Prof. Rainer Moog (viola) and the Amadeus Quartet, among others. She performs regularly as a duo with her brother Christoph Danne, violinist with the Essen Philharmonic Orchestra.

She completed her studies with the Artistic Maturity Examination (1993 Detmold Conservatory with Prof. Nerine Barrett), the Diploma for Instrumental Pedagogy (1989 Cologne Conservatory with Prof. Karin Merle) and the Diploma for Early Musical Education and Basic Training (1991 Cologne Conservatory). She gave piano recitals in Germany, France and Italy and was soloist of several piano concerts. She perfected her studies by participating in master classes (with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, Astrid Schmidt-Neuhaus, among others). For some years now, she has been 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 from 1993 to 2023 regularly participated in advanced piano pedagogical trainings, among others with Prof. Sybille Cada, Prof. Herbert Wiedemann, Prof. Inge Rosar, the EPTA and various specialist conferences in music pedagogy. She is a member of the German Tonkünstlerverband Frankfurt (FTKB) and the EPTA (European Piano Teachers Association). She is also a jury member of the Bitburg Piano Competition. Since 2022 she is the artistic director of the "International Piano Competition for Young Pianists Kronberg".