Herbert Schuch
Piano
Herbert Schuch’s credo is not only to make music sound, but also to make it speak. With his strikingly conceived solo programmes and recordings of the highest artistic standard, he creates a conversation between composers, the podium, and the audience.
In 2022 Herbert Schuch released four new albums that underline his artistic diversity: “In Search Of”, a journey into the musical childhood of the piano duo Piano//Duo EnsariSchuch, an album together with clarinettist Sebastian Manz with works by Brahms, Schumann and Gade, and a Grieg-only album together with cellist Daniel Müller-Schott. In November 2022 Schuch’s new solo CD “Soulmates” was released, on which he brought works by Janáček and Schubert into dialogue with each other. October 2023 saw the release of his recording of Erwin Schulhoff’s piano concerto, as well as Beethoven’s first piano concerto with the WDR Symphony Orchestra.
Herbert Schuch has worked with a number of renowned orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Residentie Orkest Den Haag, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Bamberg Symphony, the Dresden Philharmonic and the radio orchestras of hr, MDR, WDR, NDR Hannover, the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, the Danish Radio, the Orchestre National de Belgique as well as the Camerata Salzburg and the Festival Strings Lucerne. He appears regularly as guest at important venues and festivals such as the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Philharmonie Cologne, the Salzburg Festival, the Festival Radio France Occitanie, the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Kissinger Sommer, the Heidelberger Frühling and the Schumann Festival Düsseldorf. Among the conductors with whom he has enjoyed successful associations are Pierre Boulez, Andrey Boreyko, Douglas Boyd, Lawrence Foster, Gustavo Gimeno, Reinhard Goebel, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Jakub Hrůsa, Jun Märkl, Riccardo Minasi, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jonathan Nott, Markus Poschner, Michael Sanderling, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Markus Stenz.
Herbert Schuch was born in Timișoara, Romania, in 1979. He had his first piano lessons in his native city, before his family moved to Germany in 1988, where he has lived since. He continued his musical studies with Kurt Hantsch and then with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Recently, Herbert Schuch has been particularly influenced by his encounters and work with Alfred Brendel. He created an international stir when he won three major competitions in a row within a year: the Casagrande Competition, the London International Piano Competition and the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna. Herbert Schuch, who played the violin for 10 years as a child, shares his passion for chamber music on stage with musicians such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Julia Fischer, Maximilian Hornung, Sebastian Manz and Daniel Müller-Schott. With pianist Gülru Ensari, he devotes himself to playing the piano four-handed and on two grand pianos. The duo has already released three CDs on the Avi Music label with a stylistically wide-ranging repertoire from Mozart to Bernd Alois Zimmermann. In addition to his performance activities, Herbert Schuch is also involved in the organization “Rhapsody in School”, founded by Lars Vogt, which promotes classical music educations in schools, and regularly gives master classes.
