Gerhard Vielhaber

Gerhard Vielhaber was born in Attendorn in 1982. As early as 1994, Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling took on the then twelve-year-old as a private student. He completed his diploma with him at the HMT Hannover in 2006 and then studied in the solo class of Prof. Jacques Rouvier at the Universität der Künste Berlin until his concert exam. From September 2014 to September 2024, Gerhard Vielhaber taught as a professor of piano at the Vorarlberg State Conservatory in Feldkirch, Austria, and since October 2024 he has been a professor at the Cologne University of Music and Theatre.

In addition to his many successes in the federal “Jugend musiziert” (Youth Makes Music) competition, in 1997 he won first prize in the “Concertino Praga” international radio competition. There followed further competition successes and awards such as the Culture Prize of the Olpe District in 2002 and the 2003 GWK Music Sponsorship Prize. As a finalist in the 2005 German Music Competition in Berlin, he was included as a soloist in the list of artists of the German Music Council.

His “BOVIARTrio” with Daniel Bollinger (clarinet) and Julian Arp (cello) was awarded a grant at the 2002 German Music Competition, as was his “Mariani Klavierquartett” (piano quartet) with Philipp Bohnen (violin), Barbara Buntrock (viola) and Peter-Philipp Staemmler (cello) in 2011, whose “Debut in Germany’s Radio Culture” in January 2013 in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s chamber music hall was widely acclaimed. Gerhard Vielhaber earnt a scholarship from the German Musical Life Foundation and he was supported for a long time by the Jürgen-Ponto Foundation and the German People’s Study Foundation. Both as a soloist and as a chamber musician, Gerhard Vielhaber can be heard at major festivals such as the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festivals, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Berlin Music Festival, the Ludwigsburg Festivals and the Rheingau Music Festival. In addition, his concert activities took him to, among other things, the “Next Generation” series of the publisher Harenberg-Verlag in Dortmund, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, Spain, Croatia, North Africa and Japan. As a soloist he performed concerts with, for instance, the Berlin Radio Symphonic Orchestra under Matthias Foremny, the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra under Patrick Lange, the Cologne Radio Orchestra under Peter Gülke and the Warsaw Radio Symphonic Orchestra under Wojciech Rajski. His debut in 2007 with the Mannheim National Theatre conducted by Adam Fischer was also a great success. In January 2008, PianoNews wrote about his solo CD published by ClassicClips with works by Franck, Kalabis (first recording) and Schumann: “This recording gives us a glimpse into the promising future of this young pianist.” Radio recordings were produced for, among others, WDR, BR, SWR, ORF and television ones for the Czech Republic.