Born in 1997, pianist Alexander Breitenbach began his training in 2004 with piano instructor Evelyn Rück at the Fritz Busch Music School in Siegen, North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 2015 he has studied at the Cologne College of Music and Dance in the class of Prof. Dr. Florence Millet. Already at an early age he participated successfully in national and international competitions and master classes. Thus he won first prizes and special prizes several times at Jugend musiziert, the van Bremen Piano Competition, and the International Grotrian Steinweg Piano Competition. Moreover, he also received the Ferdinand Trimborn Advancement Award (North Rhine-Westphalia) as well as the Busch-Brüder Advancement Award in Siegen, and is a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Society (Bergisches Land) and of Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Cologne. He received the opportunity to appear as a soloist with orchestra for the first time at the age of fourteen. This was followed by performances of Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the Philharmonie Südwestfalen and, as winner of a selection contest, in a concert with the Orchestra of the Cologne College of Music. He received valuable inspiration and impulses from Robert Levin, John Perry, Felix Gottlieb, Rahman El Bacha, Rena Shereshevskaya, Josef Anton Scherrer, Carmen Piazzini, Ilana Schapira-Marinescu, and Jacob Leuschner, among others. As a substantial part of his studies, Alexander Breitenbach occupied himself intensively with ostracized composers, in particular with Ernst Bachrich, whose piano works have a high priority in his repertoire.

Photo: (c) private