Stefan Arnold, Pianist

“Ravishing clear and perceptive. He plays with youthful vigor and complete precision. He had the enraptured audience in the palm of his hand.” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Born in Würzburg, Germany, Stefan Arnold started piano lessons at the age of four. He studied at the Musikhochschule (University of Music) in Würzburg, where he won First Prize at the university competition. In 1983 he was accepted at the Musikhochschule in Hanover, where he studied with the famous piano pedagogue, Hans Leygraf.

In 1985 he completed his degree summa cum laude and received a scholarship from the German People’s Study Foundation. Stefan Arnold continued to study in Salzburg, where he graduated from the Mozarteum Musikhochschule with distinction and received the Outstanding Young Artist of The Year award granted by the Austrian Government. He completed his postgraduate studies, with distinction, at the Musikhochschule Berlin.

Stefan Arnold has won numerous prizes, including First Prize at the Senigallia International Piano Competition in Italy 1986 and First Prize at the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb (German Music Competition) in 1987. He was chosen twice to perform at the national Concerts by Young Musicians. He was also an award winner at the International Piano Competition in Dublin.

Since winning First Prize in the 1988 International Bösendorfer Competition in Austria, Stefan Arnold has established himself as one of the most gifted pianists of his generation. In addition to performances with major European Orchestras, he has made guest appearances at Internationale Mozartwoche of Salzburg, the Mozartfest of Würzburg, Klaviersommer Bonn, the Bologna-Festival, the Rossini-Festival of Pesaro , the Art & Music Festival of Junsele, the Royal Palace Festival of Stockholm, the Vendsyssel-Festival, the Festival “Octobre Musical Carthage” and the St. Pauls Festival of New York .

Stefan Arnold has performed in many of the world’s major concert halls such as the Tonhalle in Zürich, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Gasteig in Munich, the Festspielhaus in Salzburg, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Tivoli in Copenhagen, the Palacio de las Bellas Artes in Mexico-City, the Teatro Opera in Buenos Aires, Suntory-Hall and Bunko Kaikan in Tokyo and Symphony-Hall in Osaka.

He has performed as soloist with the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Philarmonic Orchestra, the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, the Camerata Orchestra of Salzburg, the National Symphony Orchestra of Belgium, the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, the Stockholm Sinfonietta, the Eugene Symphony Orchestra, the Rochester NY Philharmonic Orchestra and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra under such conductors as Gabriel Feltz, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Eduardo Garcia Barrios, Okko Kamu, Göran W. Nilsson, Christoph Poppen, Christoph Prick, Jonathan Seers, Hubert Soudant, Yuri Simonov, Jeffrey Tate, Arild Remmereit, Matthias Bamert or Kaspar Zehnder.

Stefan Arnold has made recordings on the Harmonia Mundi and Ambitus labels. Since he became an exclusive Ambitus artist, this collaboration has produced eleven recordings with works by Liszt, Brahms, Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart, Schumann, Debussy, Berg and Schoenberg, including Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 12 and 14.

2004 Arnold was appointed professor for piano at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst, Wien. 2015 he additionelly got a professorship at Hochschule Hanns Eisler, Berlin.