Till Fellner, piano

Austrian pianist Till Fellner performs regularly with many of the world’s most important orchestras and as solo recitalist and chamber musician at major music centers of Europe, the United States, and Japan, has been lauded for a combination of probing musicianship, flawless technical command, and the rare ability to see through the notes to the “inner necessities” of the works he performs. From 2008 to 2010 he undertook a worldwide cycle of all 32 Beethoven solo piano sonatas, a tour de force which brought him recognition internationally as a musician of the first order.

In 2012 Fellner took a one-year sabbatical to dedicate himself to the study of new repertoire and to deepen his knowledge of composition, literature, and film. At the personal invitation of Maestro Bernard Haitink, he briefly interrupted his time-off in the spring of 2012 to perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-Flat Major, K. 482 with the Boston Symphony at Symphony Hall. Haitink had first collaborated with Fellner after choosing him to replace an ailing Maurizio Pollini as guest soloist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2010 for performances in Amsterdam and Brussels.

Fellner resumed his concert life in January 2013 with solo programmes focused on the repertoire of four composers: Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Schumann. Devoted to the study of contemporary music, he also presented the world premiere of Harrison Birtwistle’s Songs from the Same Earth with his longtime collaborator, British tenor Mark Padmore at the Aldeburgh Festival.

In spring 2013 Fellner returned to North America to perform solo recitals at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall in New York and in San Francisco. He also appeared as guest soloist with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Kent Nagano. His European solo engagements took him to Brussels, Paris, Manchester, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, and London’s Wigmore Hall. In February Fellner performed as guest soloist with the Residentie Orkest and David Afkham in The Hague and Amsterdam in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, and in March was heard as soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto in C Minor, K. 491 with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra conducted by Sir Neville Marriner.

Other recent guest soloist engagements included the Montreal Symphony Orchestra with Kent Nagano, the Orquestra Nacional do Porto, Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, NDR Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Vienna Virtuosi at the Musikverein Vienna, and the Orchestre National de Lyon. In previous seasons Till Fellner has performed with the Orchestre National de France with Kurt Masur conducting, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London under Sir Charles Mackerras, and the Munich Philharmonic with Lothar Zagrosek at the podium. Fellner’s acclaimed discography includes his celebrated 2004 release of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I on ECM as well as a subsequent recording of the Bach Two and Three-Part Inventions.

Despite the relatively short span of Till Fellner’s international career, the list of his collaborators reads like a “Who’s Who” of classical music; he has appeared as guest soloist with many of the world’s foremost orchestras and has worked with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Manfred Honeck, Sir Charles Mackerras, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Leonard Slatkin, and Lothar Zagrosek, among many others. Till Fellner first came to world attention in 1993 by winning First Prize at the important Clara Haskil International Piano Competition at Vevey, Switzerland. He was a student of Helene Sedo-Stadler before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel, Meira Farkas, Oleg Maisenberg, and Claus-Christian Schuster.