Christopher Hinterhuber

Christopher Hinterhuber has established himself internationally as a pianist with a remarkably wide-ranging repertoire. In addition to worldwide concert engagements, he has released numerous recordings for labels including Naxos, Wergo, Camerata Tokyo and paladino music. His CD of sonatas and rondos by C. P. E. Bach was acclaimed by the magazine FonoForum as ‘one of the best, most fascinating piano albums of the year’, while the English magazine Gramophone named his recording of works for piano and orchestra by Hummel as ‘Editor’s Choice’. His series of five CDs exploring the piano concertos of Beethoven’s contemporary Ferdinand Ries, recorded with orchestras including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, received equal international acclaim. 

He studied piano with Axel Papenberg at the Conservatory in Klagenfurt (today the Gustav Mahler Private University for Music) and with Rudolf Kehrer, Avo Kouyoumdjian and Heinz Medjimorec at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, and furthered his expertise at the Accademia pianistica of the Fondazione Accademia ‘Incontri col Maestro’ in Imola with Lazar Berman and Leonid Margarius. He has also benefited from artistic advice from Oleg Maisenberg and Vladimir Ashkenazy among others. 

As a prize-winner of international competitions in Leipzig (the Bach Competition), Saarbrücken (the International Piano Competition J. S. Bach), Pretoria (Unisa), Zurich (Concours Géza Anda) and Vienna (the International Beethoven Piano Competition), Christopher Hinterhuber has given regular concerts at leading festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Ruhr Piano Festival, the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, Styriarte and the Carinthian Summer Music Festival.

He has given concerts with leading artists including Vladimir Ashkenazy, Yakov Kreizberg, Sylvain Cambreling, Kirill Karabits, Jakub Hrůša, Christian Arming, Bruno Weil, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Dennis Russell Davies, Bertrand de Billy, Ari Rasilainen, Adrian Leaper, Howard Griffiths, Hubert Soudant, Alfred Eschwé and Beat Furrer, and with ensembles such as the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Klangforum Wien, the Vienna and Zurich Chamber Orchestras, the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. In 2002/3 he represented Austria, together with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, in the ‘Rising Stars’ series at Carnegie Hall and Europe’s leading concert halls. 

One of his special projects was a sound recording (Schubert, Rachmaninoff and Schoenberg) with imagery (Christopher Hinterhuber’s hands) for the French-Austrian film Die Klavierspielerin (The Piano Teacher), directed by Michael Haneke and based on Elfriede Jelinek’s novel. The film won the Grand Prix of the jury in Cannes in 2001. 

Christopher Hinterhuber is active as a chamber musician, performing in the Altenberg Trio Wien, which has its own concert series at the Vienna Musikverein. His radio and television recordings for ORF, Radio SRF 2, NHK, SWR and others further highlight his prominent position among the younger generation of Austrian pianists. 

Christopher Hinterhuber is professor of piano at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.