Michael Wessel – piano

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Michael Wessel is piano, accompaniment and medodics professor at Hochschule für Evangelische Kirchenmusik Bayreuth. He studies piano, composition, harmony, counterpoint and music education at the Academies of Music of Detmold and Stuttgart: piano with Hanns-Ulrich Kunze, Jürgen Uhde and Elisabeth Leonskaja, and composition with Helmut Lachenmann. During his studies with H. Lachenmann, he received a scholarship for young scientists from Baden-Württemberg. His repertoire includes all music epochs important for piano music. As a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist he performs in many European countries and in the Middle East. As a soloist he has collaborated with numerous orchestras, inclusing the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra. He eagerly participates in concerts combined with lectures on compositions and music interpretation or with poem reciting with such actors as Christoph Bantzer and Heikko Deutschmann. He performs with renown chamber musicians, including Tilmann Wicke, Daniel Gaede and Jan Schroeder, and famous song performers (Kai Wessel). Numerous recordings for the radio and recording companies (SWR, Animato) testify to his broad artistic activity. He is the author of the book Die Kunst des Übens – Wegweiser zu inspiriertem Üben und Interpretieren (The Art of Practicing – guidelines fof stimulated excersising and interpreting, Wilhelmshaven 2007), which received very good reviews in professional press and the radio. In Septemner 2012, his new book was published by the Bärenreiterverlag publishing house Üben-Proben-Karriere – 12 Interpreten im Gespräch (Exercising-Rehearsass-Career – interviews with 12 music interpreters) where the author speaks to such people as Paul Badura-Skoda, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Christian Tetzlaff, Tabea Zimmermann, Annette Dasch and Jörg Widmann). On the occasion of the Wagner Year of 2013, he released an album with works by Wagner Liszt-Wagner and Julius Reubke (Animato), which also received excellent reviews. He sits on the juries of national and international music competitions (including the Franz-Liszt-Wettbewerb Weimar, the Academic Piano Competition of Italian Music Conservatoires). He also conducts regularly master classes at conservatoires at home and abroad (e.g. Conservatorio G. Puccini La Spezia, music schools in Munich and Nuremberg, Bundesakademie Trossingen, ABA Muscat Oman).