Even today, exactly two hundred years after the beginning of their creation, the “Diabelli Variations” still have a reputation among many concertgoers and organisers as being “awkward” or “unwieldy” and, in any case, difficult to understand.
Jacob Leuschner proves the opposite. Indeed, it is not an immediately accessible piece, let alone one that ingratiates itself the first time you hear it; like most of Beethoven’s later works, it requires intense, concentrated engagement before it reveals its complex beauty.
Since 1989, Jacob Leuschner has performed as a soloist and sought-after chamber musician in many European countries, Japan, South Korea, China and the USA, and has been invited to numerous international festivals. He has been a regular participant in the funding project “Bundesauswahl Konzerte Junger K nstler” (Federal Selection Concerts Young Artists) held by Deutscher Musikrat. The awards he has won at major piano competitions testify to his artistic stature: Viotti (Vercelli), Beethoven (Vienna), Schubert (Dortmund), Mozart (Salzburg), Leeds, Rina Sala Gallo (Monza), Deutscher Musikwettbewerb, Deutscher Hochschulwettbewerb - to name just the most important ones. He is also the recipient of the Possehl Music Prize, the Kai-Uwe von Hassel Prize and the Wiesbaden Mozart Prize.
Jacob Leuschner taught at the University of Music L beck and was a Visiting Professor at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT in Weimar. From 2008 to 2014, he held a professorship at the University of Music in Cologne, and then followed a call to join the University of Music in Detmold. He regularly gives masterclasses in many European countries, Japan, China and Korea. His repertoire ranges from the Virginalists to the present; one focus is the masters of Viennese classical music. He has performed the complete cycles of Mozart’s, Beethoven’s and Schubert’s piano sonatas at several occasions. He also works as a juror at international piano competitions and as a publisher and has dealt intensively with historical keyboard instruments.
He is the founder and artistic director of the Brahms Piano Competition in Detmold. His discography includes not only numerous chamber music pieces, such as the complete works for cello and piano by Reger with Guido Schiefen (Oehms Classics), but also the late Beethoven sonatas and Liszt transcriptions. In addition to two solo CDs, he released a complete recording of Mozart’s sonatas for piano and violin in 2017 with violinist Keiko Urushihara (Nippon Acoustic Records), which was met with enthusiasm by the Japanese trade press and awarded the “Excellence Award” by the Japanese State Office for Culture. Today, Jacob Leuschner is one of the most distinguished and versatile German pianists of his generation.
