Ulrich Roman Murtfeld - Pianist
Ulrich Roman Murtfeld was born in 1970 in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, into a family with a strong musical tradition. He received his first piano lessons at the age of six. After early professional piano education in Frankfurt at Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory, and also lessons in the violin, he studied in Boston/USA with Veronica Jochum (New England Conservatory). As a Scholar at Phillips Academy, Andover/Mass., he was awarded the Milton Collier Prize for Piano in 1987. Murtfeld studied Natural Sciences in Munich (Diploma, Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics) and continued his piano studies with Ana Pitis and Ioana Minei in Bucharest and with Fany Solter and K.H. Kämmerling. In 2000 he received the piano concert diploma at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and subsequently passed the concert examination at the Karlsruhe Music Academy (diploma with distinction). He found major inspiration in the Lied classes of Hartmut Höll and Mitsuko Shirai, and on master courses with Sergei Dorensky /Moscow and with François-René Duchâble in Paris. In 2002 he was awarded first prize in the Büttner piano competition, Karlsruhe; in 2003 he was the "Brahmshaus" Scholar of the Brahms Society in Baden-Baden.
As a soloist, Murtfeld has performed in numerous European countries: besides Germany, notably in France, Austria, Romania and the Slovak Republic, and repeatedly in South America (Brazil, Venezuela). He has appeared at important festivals such as the Bremen Music Festival, the Gmunden Festival Weeks, the Bad Hersfeld Festival Concerts, the young.euro.classic Festival of the European Music Summer Berlin and, for example, at the Beethoven-Rihm Chamber Music Dialogue at Schloss Neuhardenberg/Brandenburg. His interpretations centre on the classical-romantic heritage (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Liszt) and also on contemporary works. His concert programs of modern music comprise works ranging from Dutilleux and Ligeti to Stockhausen, Rihm and Hoelszky, as well as to the younger generation of composers such as J. Widmann and M. Eggert. At present, Murtfeld is devoting a doctoral thesis to the Lied compositions (vocal and piano) of Wolfgang Rihm. He has completed recordings for radio and television on many occasions (Radio Bremen, Hessischer Rundfunk, SWR, Radio Cultura São Paulo). Performances of works by Beethoven, Brahms, Liszt, Farrenc, Debussy, Dutilleux and Rihm are available on CD.