Kristi Becker grew up in the American Midwest and studied piano with Jean Abramson, James Avery and, as a Fulbright Scholar, with Carl Seemann in Freiburg, Germany. She is regularly heard in Europe, both in concerts and recordings. A special interest in music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has led to close work with noted composers from Europe, the American Continent and Asia, many of whom have written especially for her. She is a frequent guest at festivals of contemporary music (Donaueschingen, WDR Musik der Zeit, Nuova Consonanza Rome, Recontres Internationales Metz, Musica Strasbourg, Ars Nova SWF, NovAntiqua in Deutschlandfunk, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Akiyoshidai Festival Japan, etc.) and has recorded for all major German radio stations as well as in Japan and other countries. A founding member and pianist of Ensemble Köln, she realised premieres of composers such as Iannis Xenakis, Toshio Hosokawa, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Wolfgang Fortner, Mauricio Kagel, Robert HP Platz, Klaus K. Hübler, Clarence Barlow, Claude Vivier, Richard Barrett, Walter Zimmermann and Salvatore Sciarrino, to name a few. Kristi Becker has performed with orchestras in Chemnitz, Düsseldorf, Bochum, Bonn, with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, Südwestfunk Orchestra Baden-Baden, Hessischer Rundfunk Orchestra in Frankfurt, Saarländischer Rundfunk Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, Hilversum, Gürzenich Orchestra Köln. CDs of solo and chamber music works by Giacinto Scelsi, Klaus K. Hübler, Claude Vivier, Clarence Barlow, Robert HP Platz, Georg Katzer, Hindemith, Mauricio Kagel, Steve Reich, York Höller, Denys Bouliane. Kristi Becker taught at the esteemed Hochschule für Musik in Detmold for many years and continues her work with young musicians in Cologne, where she now lives.