Sebastian Knauer (pianist)

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Sebastian Knauer on the piano in the Laeiszhalle

Sebastian Knauer (born July 29, 1971 in Hamburg ) is a German classical pianist .

Origin and youth

Sebastian Knauer comes from an old Hamburg merchant family. In honor of his ancestor Georg Andreas Knauer (1759–1828) there is still a monument on Eppendorfer Landstrasse in Hamburg. A famous painting by Alexander Macco (1767–1849), who also worked with Ludwig v. Beethoven and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was known, shows Georg Andreas Knauer as part of his family. His father Wolfgang Knauer (1942–2018) was a journalist and worked for the North German Broadcasting Corporation for many years. a. as the head of NDR Kultur and as the inventor and editor of the satirical program "Reißwolf". His mother Christa Knauer was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for her many voluntary activities.

Sebastian Knauer began playing the piano at the age of five. He was quickly considered a "child prodigy" and opened a. a. the 1985 congress for gifted children in Hamburg. Sebastian Knauer made his concert debut in 1984 in the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg . At the age of 17 he was awarded the important Eduard Söring Prize from the Foundation for the Promotion of the Hamburg State Opera.

He studied in Hamburg with Gernot Kahl , who passed on the attack culture of his teachers Edwin Fischer and Géza Anda . Sebastian Knauer also studied with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling in Hanover and also received lessons from Philippe Entremont , under whose direction he also gave concerts around the world, including two pianos. He received further courses from Sir András Schiff and Alexis Weissenberg .

Sebastian Knauer lives in Hamburg with his wife and two children.

The monument to Sebastian Knauer's ancestor Georg Andreas Knauer in Hamburg

Piano art

He has had a particularly close collaboration and friendship with the conductor Sir Roger Norrington for many years. In 2006 he released a Mozart CD with him and the Camerata Salzburg on Warner Classics , which ZEIT called one of the best Mozart recordings of all time.

Between 1999 and 2001 Sebastian Knauer played and conducted all 27 WA Mozart piano concertos together with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in a concert cycle specially designed for him .

In 2009 he played and conducted all of Joseph Haydn's piano concertos with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra .

Again and again the press is very positive about the touch and the sound of his piano playing:

"Pearly attack" ( Rondo magazine )

"Magically" ( Grammophone Magazine )

"A touch with rare delicacy" ( Diapason )

"An amazing number of colors on his pianist palette" ( Frankfurter Allgemeine )

"In a class of its own" ( Arte TV, Kulturjournal )

Sebastian Knauer repeatedly gives master classes as part of his tours, including a. in Germany , France , Italy , Japan and China .

Act

Concert tours have taken him all over Europe, the USA, South America and Asia. He has already given concerts in over 50 countries on 4 continents and repeatedly visits important stages, even in the early years of his career:

Commitment to classical music

As a visionary, Sebastian Knauer is always opening up to other genres and developing projects himself in which he gives classical music a new face:

So he started his series “Word meets Music” with the actress Hannelore Elsner in 2000 with the program he designed “ George Sand and Frédéric Chopin - A winter on Mallorca, the truth!”. Since then he has worked on over 50 other projects of this kind with actors such as Martina Gedeck , Hannelore Hoger , Iris Berben , Katja Riemann , Klaus Maria Brandauer and Ulrich Tukur .

In 2018, on the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein , he gave concerts with his daughter Jamie Bernstein in Germany, the USA and Canada to commemorate the composer and conductor in words and music.

In 2016 he co-founded the “Hamburger Piano Sommer” project, where, together with the pianists Martin Tingvall , Axel Zwingenberger and Joja Wendt, he combined four different genres in one concert, which has taken place annually since then.

Sebastian Knauer founded the “mozart @ augsburg” festival in 2011, which he has also directed artistically since then.

Since 2017 he has also been the artistic director of the International Music Festival at Berleburg Castle under the patronage of the Danish Princess Benedigte .

In 2020 he started another festival under the name "Ludwig FUN Beethoven" in the city of Aachen , which he is also artistic director. However, this festival had to be postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic .

Very closely connected to chamber music, he regularly gives concerts with partners such as the Emerson String Quartet , Daniel Hope , Renaud Capuçon , Sabine Meyer , Albrecht Mayer , Sol Gabetta , Anne Sofie von Otter and Hermann Prey .

Orchestra and concerts

Sebastian Knauer played on important stages such as the Konzerthaus and the Philharmonie in Berlin , the Cologne and Munich Philharmonics , the Gewandhaus Leipzig , the Concertgebouw Amsterdam , the Wigmore Hall London , the Théatre des Champs - Elysées Paris , the Tonhalle Zurich , the Wiener Konzerthaus , the Auditori Barcelona , the Sala Verdi Milan , or overseas the Lincoln Center New York , the Koerner Hall Toronto , the Herbst Theater San Francisco , the Knight Concert Hall Miami , the Téatro Municipal in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro , the Oriental Concert Hall in Shanghai , the NCPA Beijing , the Forbidden City Concert Hall Beijing, the Toppan Hall Tokyo or the Performing Arts Center Hong Kong .

Other orchestral players with whom he has performed include a. the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester , the Konzerthausorchester Berlin , the Philharmonia Zürich , the Bournemouth Symphony , the Orchester de Chambre de Paris , the Vienna Chamber Orchestra , the Camerata Salzburg , the Chamber Orchestra of Europe , the Israel Chamber Orchestra , the New York City Opera Orchestra , conducted and conducted the New Century Chamber Orchestra San Francisco and the Shanghai Philharmonic a. by Thomas Hengelbrock , Simone Young , Michael Sanderling , Markus Poschner , Thomas Dausgaard or Alexander Shelley . He is a regular guest at festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival , the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival , the Rheingau Music Festival , Ruhr Piano Festival , Beethoven Festival Bonn , Music Festival Bremen , Schubertiade Hohenems , Jeunesse Vienna , the Salzburg Festival , Menuhin Festival Gstaad , September Musical Vevey / Montreux , Bath Mozart Festival , Festival de Colmar , Lincoln Center Festival New York , Ravinia Festival , Savannah Music Festival , Santo Domingo Festival and the Shanghai Arts Festival .

repertoire

A special feature of Sebastian Knauer, whose diverse and extensive repertoire ranges from the baroque to the modern, are his often unique program compositions in concerts and on his CD recordings, in which even well-known works get a high repertoire value again.

In addition, two concert cycles were composed for him, “ÜberBach” (2016) and “This is (not) Beethoven - Variations for Piano & Orchestra” (2019). Both works were written by Arash Safaian .

On his debut CD in 1998 he devoted himself to the entire solo piano work of George Gershwin , and recorded the rarely heard solo version of Rhapsody in Blue .

In 1999 he combined father and son Mozart and played a hitherto little known piano concerto by Mozart's son Franz Xaver Mozart .

He combined the three great American composers Leonard Bernstein , Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber and thus introduced much unknown repertoire, such as the Anniversaries by Bernstein .

In 2004 he recorded the CD "East meets West" together with Daniel Hope , where he played on a replica of the Luthéal invented by Maurice Ravel .

In 2007 he published a world premiere recording of a forgotten Schubert sonata, the “Sonate Oubliée”, which was discovered by Jörg Demus .

In 2009 he devoted himself to the piano works and thus to the "Songs without Words" by Felix Mendelssohn and was also able to publish some of these pieces there as a world premiere.

On “Bach & Sons” and “Bach & Sons 2” he juxtaposed piano concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian .

He established that Mozart's last and Beethoven's first piano concerto had their origins in the same year and combined both concerts - also unique up to then.

Discography

Trivia

Sebastian Knauer and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra in the Elbphilharmonie on the occasion of the G20 special concert for police officers.

On July 13, 2017, together with the Hamburger Abendblatt , he organized a special concert for over 1000 police officers and their partners in the great hall of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg . He called the concert "RESPECT" as a token of appreciation for their commitment in the context of the serious riots during the G20 summit in his hometown. In a very short time, with the help of numerous sponsors, he managed to get this concert off the ground in the first year of operation of what is probably one of the most famous concert halls in the world. Together with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and Pascal Schumacher he played the work “Überbach” by Arash Safaia n. Sebastian Knauer was awarded the “ Police Star 2018” by the Hamburg Police Headquarters for this concert .

In 2003 Sebastian Knauer played an open-air benefit concert in Shanghai for the victims of the SARS epidemic in China, which was broadcast nationwide on television and received great attention. He showed his sympathy and attachment to the twin city of his hometown Hamburg .

In 2002 he played for the American President Bill Clinton at a reception of “Werkstatt Deutschland” on the 12th anniversary of the reunification of Germany in the Hotel Adlon Berlin.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monument Hamburg: Andreasbrunnen. May 26, 2014, accessed April 29, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Alexander Macco: Estate of Alexander Macco (1767-1849) - mixed lot . Ed .: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. Self-published, Bamberg 1920.
  3. ↑ Christopher Deepe: NDR mourns Wolfgang Knauer. January 9, 2018, accessed April 29, 2020 .
  4. ^ Hamburger Abendblatt: A music festival in honor of Christa Knauer. Retrieved February 1, 2002 .
  5. ↑ Hamburg Opera Foundation: Prize Winner. Retrieved April 29, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Sebastian Knauer: Vita. Retrieved April 29, 2020 .
  7. ^ W. Goertz: Out of the blue. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  8. ^ Hamburger Abendblatt: Untitled. September 26, 2002, accessed April 29, 2020 .
  9. ↑ Music experience: Sebastian Knauer. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Dr. Christiane Bayer: Haydn, Joseph - Piano Concertos Hob.18 No. 3, 4, 9, 11. Accessed on May 20, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Grammophone Magazine: Sebastian Knauer sings these songs magically - say no more! Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  12. ↑ a b c Unknown: press reviews. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Hamburger Abendblatt: A winter on Mallorca. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  14. ^ Royal Conservatory: Bernstein @ 100 featuring Sebastian Knauer, Jamie Bernstein, Wallis Giunta, and the ARC Ensemble. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Tanja Dirbach: Sebastian Knauer and Jamie Bernstein present piano miniatures by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) together in Schenefeld. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Die Welt: Hamburger Pianosommer: Eight fists for a Hallelujah. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Augsburger Allgemeine: We are still under construction. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Westfalenpost: Tryst in the castle. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  19. ↑ City of Aachen: Beethoven Festival 2020. Accessed on May 20, 2020 .
  20. ↑ Stefan Dosch - Augsburger Allgemeine: With Mozart it should click. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  21. ^ Lübecker Nachrichten: Sol Gabetta comes into the district twice. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  22. ^ Siegener Zeitung: Focus on Mozart. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Ulrich Kernen: Wildly Acclaimed Master Concert. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  24. ^ WDR: International Music Festival Week. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  25. ↑ Sylter Rundschau: When you cry, the concert was good. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  26. ↑ Stefan Dosch: The music survived . Ed .: Augsburger Allgemeine. No. 199 . Press Druck Media, Augsburg August 2014, p. 35 .
  27. ↑ a b Unknown: Discography. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  28. ^ Hamburger Abendblatt: Hamburg Police Supervisor for pianist Sebastian Knauer. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  29. ↑ China Internet Formation: Pianist holds free concert. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
  30. ↑ Matthias Iken - Hamburger Abendblatt: The star is Mozart, not me. Retrieved May 20, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Knauer, Sebastian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German classical pianist
DATE OF BIRTH July 29, 1971
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg