Martin Helmchen

Martin Helmchen (born 1982) is a German pianist.

He has played with international orchestras and has recorded discs of many classical composers.

Helmchen was born in Berlin.

He began his piano studies at the age of six, and graduated from the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory as a student of Galina Iwanzowa, and in 2001 from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover as a student of Arie Vardi.

In 2001 he won the Clara Haskil International Piano Competition.

In 2003 he won the International Kissinger Klavierolymp Competition, related to the festival Kissinger Sommer.

He was a featured soloist in the BBC New Generation Artists program from 2005 to 2007.

Helmchen has given concerts with the San Francisco Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Deutschen Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the NHK Symphony Orchestra.

His specialty is chamber music, where he has performed extensively with Heinrich Schiff and Marie-Elisabeth Hecker.

Collaborations with further artists have included Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Sharon Kam, Tabea Zimmermann, Juliane Banse, Julia Fischer, Sabine Meyer and Lars Vogt.

In the same year he received the ECHO Klassik Prize as together with cellist Danjulo Ishizaka for their CD with works from Felix Mendelssohn, César Franck, Benjamin Britten (2005, Sony Classical).

In 2006 he was awarded the Crédit Suisse Award, for his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic, directed by Valery Gergiev, playing Schumann's Piano Concerto at the Lucerne Festival.

Helmchen's first orchestral CD was released in 2007 with piano concerti from Mozart, and his first solo CD with works of Schubert was released in 2008.

In 2009, two further CDs were released:

He made his American debut in 2011 when he played at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The same year he performed with Dohnanyi and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.