2025 Competition Juror
AUSTRIA
Till Fellner’s international career began in 1993 with the first prize at the renowned Concours Clara Haskil in Vevey, Switzerland. Since then, he has been a sought-after guest at the major orchestras and the music centers of Europe, the United States, and Japan, as well as at numerous festivals.
As soloist, Mr. Fellner performs with orchestras such as Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and NHK Symphony Orchestra.
He has collaborated with Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Manfred Honeck, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Jonathan Nott, Kirill Petrenko, and Hans Zender, among others. In the field of chamber music, he regularly collaborates with violinist Viviane Hagner, tenor Mark Padmore, and the Belcea Quartet. In spring 2023, he toured Japan with German mezzo-soprano Anna Lucia Richter.
Recently, Mr. Fellner has dedicated himself to two milestones of the piano repertoire: The Well-Tempered Clavier of Johann Sebastian Bach and the 32 piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. He performed the Beethoven cycle from 2008 to 2010 in New York, Washington, Tokyo, London, Paris, and Vienna. He has premiered works by Kit Armstrong, Harrison Birtwistle, Thomas Larcher, Alexander Stankovski, and Hans Zender.
Mr. Fellner is an exclusive recording artist for the the ECM label, for whom he has released the First Book of The Well-Tempered Clavier and Bach's Two & Three-Part Inventions, Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 4 and 5 with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Kent Nagano, chamber music by Harrison Birtwistle, and 2018's Till Fellner in Concert with live recordings of works by Liszt and Beethoven. In 2016, Alpha Classics released his recording of the piano quintet by Johannes Brahms with the Belcea Quartet; this recording received the Diapason d’Or de l’Année.
In his native Vienna, Mr. Fellner studied with Helene Sedo-Stadler before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel, Meira Farkas, Oleg Maisenberg, and Claus-Christian Schuster. He currently teaches at the Zurich Hochschule der Künste and the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz.