|
The German pianist, Thomas Günther, received his artistic training at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen and the University of the Arts Berlin. Important suggestions he received also a student of Maria Curcio (London) and Konrad Wolff (New York). In 1980, he was inducted into the Academic Foundation of the German People, in 1981 he won the 1981 Folkwang Competition
In 983 Thomas Günther made his debut as a soloist at the Berlin Festival. In the following years, he made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in L.v. Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto and since then has appeared in other national and international festivals: the Duisburger Akzenten, the Dresdner Tagen für zeitgenössische Musik , the Autunno Musicale in Venice, the Festival de musique contemporaine d'Evreux, the Rheinischen Musikfest and the Europäischen Kulturtagen (European Cultural Days). In addition, concert tours have taken him to South America and China.
His programme focus, in addition to the classical repertoire, include works by Russian Futurists (Protopopov, Wyschnegradsky, Lourié, Roslavetz, Mosolov, Obouchov) and mostly unknown or forgotten piano music of German-Jewish exile generation and the circle around Arnold Schoenberg (Kahn, Wolpe, Schulhoff, Klein, Haas, Spinner, etc.). Composers who entrusted him premieres of their works have included John Cage ( ONE for piano), Dieter Schnebel and Juan Allende-Blin.
Since the late 1980’s, he studies the piano music of J.S. Bach and questions their interpretation on the piano. He has performed voth books of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 846-869, BWV 870-893) , the Clavierübung II and the Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) in several German cities. He repeatedly held workshops on this topic.
The encounter with a "string" fortepiano from 1848 led to renewed intensive examination of the Sonatas of Franz Schubert'. In addition, Thomas Günther is a committed chamber musician in various ensembles. With the violinist Johannes Prelle he performed in the late 1990’s in Cologne all Beethoven sonatas for piano and violin.
Since 2003, Thomas Günther works regularly with the label Cybele Records. In these years, he has created Super Audio CD’s with works of Allende-Blin, Kahn, Schubert, Schumann, J.S. Bach, and - in co-production with the German radio - a series of four SACD’s with piano works by the Russian Futurists.
In 2004, Thomas Günther founded the InternationalenRotary-Klavierwettbewerb (International Rotary Piano Competition), which he is Artistic Director.
Since 2007, Thomas Günther is Professor of Piano at the Folkwang Hochschule in
Essen. |
