Schumann Quartett & Hinrich Alpers
Biography Schumann Quartett & Hinrich Alpers
Hinrich Alpers
German pianist Hinrich Alpers, 1st Prize winner of the 3rd International Telekom Beethoven Competition in Bonn, Germany and Laureate of Canada’s Honens International Piano Competition, has truly been living up to the high expectations set by the critics’ appraisal. A young artist of astonishing maturity and versatility, his never-superficial playing is full of both youthful energy and sincerity, evident through his deep and all-encompassing musical understanding.
He has appeared in recital, as soloist with orchestra and as partner in chamber music and Lieder collaborations on numerous festivals and events throughout Europe, America, Canada and many other countries. Hinrich played at the Philharmonie Berlin, New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Munich Gasteig, has performed at the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and Beethoven Easter Festival Warsaw, and Beethovenfest Bonn, and is Artistic Advisor to the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival.
Hinrich’s repertoire comprises some of the cornerstones of piano music such as the complete piano works by Beethoven, Schumann and Ravel, and all five Piano Concertos by Rachmaninoff. He has given cyclical performances of the aforementioned, and has recorded the complete Ravel for the honens label. That said, he is a devoted performer of lesser known works, frequently plays the Second Viennese School (Schönberg – Berg – Webern), Szymanowski and the late works of Scriabin. He has often performed music by John Cage, including his monumental “Sonatas and Interludes” for prepared piano, played from memory.
In 2020, the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, Hinrich’s recording of the complete Beethoven Symphonies in Franz Liszt’s brilliant transcriptions has been released on SONY Classical, including his own version of the Ninth Symphony with chamber choir and soloists in which he joins forces with the prestigious RIAS Chamber choir and soloists Christina Landshamer, Daniela Denschlag, André Khamasmie and Hanno Müller-Brachmann. Already in 2017, SONY have published his project of the complete Lieder and chamber music by Rudi Stephan, who tragically died at 28 in the First World War. Hinrich’s avid research and many performances eventually lead to the publication of a SONY double album which was awarded an “OPUS Klassik” in 2018. Furthermore, in 2021 Hinrich curated and recorded a Chamber Music and Lieder album for Deutsche Grammophon commemorating the 100th anniversary of Engelbert Humperdinck’s death.
In addition, in 2010 Hinrich founded his own annual festival and masterclass series, the Summer Academy of Music in his hometown Uelzen, Germany, which brings together more than fifty young soloists from all over the world with renowned chamber music partners, pedagogues and an orchestra. It has become a year-round activity since the foundation of the Winter Academy of Music in 2017.
Hinrich has been studying with Bernd Goetzke in Hanover, Germany, and spent a year at The Juilliard School, New York City, in the studio of Jerome Lowenthal. Today he is a sought-after pedagogue himself, having taught in Hanover, Berlin and Lübeck, and has been appointed as Professor at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden in 2021.
Hinrich has been a Steinway Artist since 2007. He has a passion for nature and sciences, frequently involves himself in culinary pursuits and listens to everything from Renaissance choral music to 21st century Jazz.
The Schumann Quartet
has reached a stage where anything is possible, because it has dispensed with certainties. This also has consequences for audiences, which from one concert to the next have to be prepared for all eventualities: “A work really develops only in a live performance,” the quartet says. “That is 'the real thing', because we ourselves never know what will happen. On the stage, all imitation disappears, and you automatically become honest with yourself. Then you can create a bond with the audience – communicate with it in music.” This live situation will gain an added energy in the near future: Albrecht Mayer, Menahem Pressler, Kit Armstrong, Anna Vinnitskaya and Anna Lucia Richter are among the quartet's current partners.
A special highlight of the 21/22 season will be the four concerts at Wigmore Hall London, where the quartet is Quartet in Residence this season. Furthermore, the quartet will be back on tour in the USA after an enforced break. It will be a guest at the String Quartet Biennale Amsterdam, the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival and the MDR Musiksommer, as well as in Berlin, Schwetzingen, Frankfurt, Cologne and Dortmund. In addition, the quartet will be able to present two special programs in Madrid and Bilbao together with mezzo-soprano Anna-Lucia Richter.
Its album “Intermezzo” (2018 | Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Schumann und Reimann with Anna-Lucia Richter) has been hailed enthusiastically both at home and abroad and received the award “Opus Klassik“ in the category quintet. It is celebrated as a worthy successor to its award-winning “Landscapes” album, in which in which the quartet traces its own roots by combining works of Haydn, Bartók, Takemitsu and Pärt. Among other prices, the latter received the “Jahrespreis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik”, five Diapasons and was selected as Editor's Choice by the BBC Music Magazine. For its previous CD “Mozart Ives Verdi”, the Schumann Quartet was accorded the 2016 Newcomer Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards in London. In 2020 the quartet has expanded its discography with "Fragment" and his examination of one of the masters of the string quartet: Franz Schubert.
The three brothers Mark, Erik and Ken Schumann have been playing together since their earliest childhood – meanwhile violist Veit Hertenstein completes the quartet. The four musicians enjoy the way they communicate without words. Although the individual personalities clearly manifest themselves, a common space arises in every musical work in a process of spiritual metamorphosis. The quartet's openness and curiosity may be partly the result of the formative influence exerted on it by teachers such as Eberhard Feltz, the Alban Berg Quartet, or partners such as Menahem Pressler.
Awards, CD releases – it is always tempting to speculate on what factors have led to many people viewing the Schumann Quartet as one of the best in the world. But the four musicians themselves regard these stages more as encounters, as a confirmation of the path they have taken. They feel that their musical development over the past two years represents a quantum leap. “We really want to take things to extremes, to see how far the excitement and our spontaneity as a group take us,” says Ken Schumann, the middle of the three Schumann brothers. They charmingly sidestep any attempt to categorise their sound, approach or style, and let the concerts speak for themselves.
And the critics approve: “Fire and energy. The Schumann Quartet plays staggeringly well [...] without doubt one of the very best formations among today’s abundance of quartets, [...] with sparkling virtuosity and a willingness to astonish” (Harald Eggebrecht in Süddeutsche Zeitung). Quotes taken from an interview with journalists from the classical music magazine VAN (van-magazin.de)
