Martin Helmchen was born in 1982 in Berlin. He can already look back on an impressive career which he embarked on after winning the famous "Concours Clara Haskil" in Vevey, Switzerland in 2001. Martin Helmchen received his first piano lessons at the age of six. From 1993 to 2000 he studied with Prof. Galina Iwanzowa at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. Since 2001, he has been a student of Prof. Arie Vardi at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover. Martin Helmchen has performed with the orchestras of RSO Stuttgart, Bamberg Symphony, RSB Berlin, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestre National de Radio France, London Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC Symphony Orchestra; and worked with conductors such as Marc Albrecht, Lawrence Foster, Philippe Herreweghe, Yakov Kreizburg, Marek Janowski, Vladimir Jurowski, Christoph Poppen, Kurt Masur and Bruno Weil. Festival engagements regularly include all the major German festivals. Martin Helmchen’s passion for chamber music was largely ignited in early collaborations with the late cellist Boris Pergamenschikow. He now performs regularly with Heinrich Schiff and Marie-Elisabeth Hecker; further partners are Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Sharon Kam, Tabea Zimmermann, Juliane Banse, Julia Fischer, Sabine Meyer and Lars Vogt. During 2009/10 Martin Helmchen gives his debuts with Berlin Philharmonic (Herbert Blomstedt), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Andris Nelsons) and the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra (Yakov Kreizburg) and returns to the Orchestre National de France. This season he will also record the Mendelssohn piano concerti with the Flanders Philharmonic and Philippe Herreweghe.

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 "Helmchen gave a delightfully unaffected, affectionate, and note-perfect performance"
Classical Source, 27 April 2009

"a pianist...with all the virtues - vision as well as virtuosity and vim - stipulated by his calling, not to mention a warm presence."
Paul Driver, Sunday Times, 3 May 2009

Project: Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.2, Live concert recording with LPO/Jurowski for CD to be released in 2010

 "This is a marvellous disc, one of the most enjoyable I have heard in a long time... a great line-up of soloists, who seem to know one another very well, or to have clicked miraculously, with results that, in the case of the 'Trout' Quintet, are more completely satisfactory than any account I have ever heard of this work."

BBC Music Magazine, July 2009

Project: Pentatone recording of Schubert's Trout Quintet, a collaboration between BBT Award Winners Martin Helmchen, Marie-Elisabeth Hecker and Antoine Tamestit, with BBT Honorary Committee member Christian Tetzlaff violin, plus Alois Posch double bass

• Study costs
• Survival money for a sabbatical
• New photos
• Live CD recording with the London Philharmonic Orchestra

General Management

Erdmuthe Pirlich at Konzertdirektion Hans Ulrich Schmid
telephone: + 49 511 36607 69
erdmuthe.pirlich@kdschmid.de
www.kdschmid.de