Michael Dorner

Michael Dorner was born in Munich and began his first piano lessons with Ms Ute Rohr, before becoming a pupil and junior student of Professor Jürgen Uhde at the age of thirteen. He completed his studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart under Professor Andrzej Jasinski. He has won awards at international competitions, including in Vierzon (France), Trapani (Italy) and Weimar (Germany), which led to engagements in other European countries, South America and Russia.

His artistic development was further enhanced by participation in masterclasses held by Alfons Kontarsky, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (accompaniment) – due to Dorner's in-depth involvement in chamber music – the members of the Borodin Quartet and Ralf Gothoni.

Michael Dorner has been a guest performer at international festivals, such as the St. Petersburg Music Festival, the Bregenzer Festspiele, the Alexander Skrjabin Festival in Moscow, the Eutiner Musiksommer, the Munich Biennale and the Dresden Festival for Contemporary Music.

He has played all thirty-two of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonatas at concerts in Europe and he has performed Beethoven's ‘Choral Fantasy’ at the Berliner Philharmonie. In addition to this highly Classical and Romantic repertoire, Michael Dorner has also enjoyed an in-depth engagement with new contemporary music.

Collaboration with composers like Aribert Reimann, Alfred Schnittke, Henri Duttilleux, Ulrich Leyendecker, Sofia Gubaidulina, Peter Michael Hamel, Violeta Dinescu and Alekos Maniatis is of sustainable importance for Dorner’s understanding of 20th and 21st Century music.

Michael Dorner also regularly gives performances as a chamber music pianist, alongside top-class ensembles such as the Ensemble Integrale, Quatuor Danel or Finale 21. He plays in chamber music ensembles for various artists, like Adrian Brendel, Valeri Krivoborodov, Viktoria Kaunzner, Alexander Kashin, Eva Maria Tersson and others. All told, he has played more than 60 premières and first performances as a soloist and chamber music pianist.

In 2009, he performed Alekos Maniatis’ piano cycle ‘Paraguay’ in South America for the first time, and he also played in the composer’s première of the ‘Afrika-Zyklus’ (‘Africa Cycle’), a solo work for piano, at the Musikhalle Hamburg (2004).

Michael Dorner has performed concerts with various orchestras in Europe and South America (Neuköllner Oper Berlin, Asunción Symphony Orchestra (OSCA), Kammerorchester Regensburg, Hamburger Symphoniker and others). He has also done radio and television recordings (some as CDs) for the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Bayrischer Rundfunk (BR), Schweizer Rundfunk (Radio Suisse), Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF) and the Moscow and St. Petersburg state broadcasters.

He has also recorded a series of CDs on the labels ‘Col Lego’ and ‘Wergo’, which included contemporary solo pieces and chamber music by Reinhard David Flender, Ulrich Leyendecker and others. Dorner has recorded pieces by Hayden, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and Brahms for ‘Taktilia’.