biography

Heidrun Holtmann was born in Münster, Germany, where she began her musical education at the age of four. Five years later she was accepted by the Music Academy of Detmold, where she worked with Renate Kretschmar-Fischer and completed her studies with highest honours.

She was awarded several prizes at national and international competitions. In 1979, she won the second prize ex aequo and in 1982 the first prize at the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich and within a few years had achieved recognition from audiences and critics alike. Appearances with conductors such as Antal Doráti, Iván Fischer and David Zinman followed, and she performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich as well as with many other symphony and chamber orchestras in Germany and abroad.

Heidrun Holtmann is a regular guest at international festivals, including Salzburg Festival, Festival d‘Automne à Paris, Festival d‘Estiú de Barcelona, Berliner Festwochen, Lucerne Festival, Settimane Musicali di Stresa, Festival Pianistico Intemazionale di Brescia e Bergamo, Ruhr Piano Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Bonn Piano Summer, MDR-Musiksommer, Lockenhaus, Kuhmo, Prussia Cove and has toured in Europe, Israel, Japan, Taiwan, the USA, Canada, South America, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

She has frequently been featured on radio and television programs, with an artist‘s portrait and a televised concert of Chopin‘s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under the baton of Klauspeter Seibel as well as a documentary of two early Mozart Piano Concertos with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Marc Andreae undertaken by Swiss Television in Lugano, which was later released on DVD by Euroarts.

Her discography includes the complete works for piano and orchestra by Robert Schumann (Deutsche Symphonie Orchester Berlin under the direction of Stefan Soltesz), Ludwig van Beethoven’s Third and Fourth Piano Concertos in chamber music versions dating from the nineteenth century (Concertino München) and several solo CDs spanning a wide repertoire ranging from Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Debussy and Szymanowski and works from the contemporary repertoire. Following her double album containing night pieces, her next CD Piano Music from Israel has been issued with works by Josef Tal, Tzvi Avni and Gil Shohat.

Her strong commitment to the music of our time, as for example demonstrated within the framework of her programme concept Music as the Expression of Freedom, has resulted in projects such as the world première of Tzvi Avni’s Piano Concerto with the Duisburger Philharmoniker conducted by Benjamin Shwartz.