Prof. Dr. Dr. Alexander Grychtolik

Alexander Grychtolik is a harpsichordist, improviser and Bach researcher. Together with his partner Aleksandra Grychtolik, he is now one of the best-known harpsichord soloists - the works of J. S. Bach, Bach's sons and the Baroque art of improvisation are the focus of their concert activities. Their interpretations combine subtlety and precision with the freshness of spontaneous, creative joy of playing. Their debut CD "Fantasia baroque", featuring improvisations on Bach, Bertali and Pasquini (COVIELLO), was nominated for an Echo Klassik award and received an award from Early Music Review.

As a conductor and harpsichordist, Alexander Grychtolik regularly performs at leading festivals, including the Frankfurter Bachkonzerte, Bachfest Leipzig, Musikfest Stuttgart, Festival Bach de Lausanne, Forum Alte Musik Zürich, Festival Europäische Kirchenmusik Schwäbisch Gmünd, Festival van Vlaanderen, the International Bachfest Schaffhausen (Artist in Residence 2021) and outside Europe in Korea, Japan and Canada, among others.

In 2008, Alexander Grychtolik founded the ensemble "Deutsche Hofmusik", with which he released internationally acclaimed first recordings of reconstructed vocal works by J. S. Bach on Sony/DHM: the CD recording of the "Köthener Trauermusik" BWV 244a, released in 2015, was nominated for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and recognized as an "important contribution to the overall reception of Bach". The homage cantata "Erwählte Pleißenstadt" BWV 216a was included in Deutsche Grammophon's complete Bach recording ("Bach 333").

His Bach reconstructions have been published by Edition Peters music publishers and are also performed by renowned interpreters such as Jordi Savall and ensembles such as the Dutch Bach Association, including the late version of the St. Mark Passion BWV 247 from 1744, which was recorded in 2009.

As a music researcher, he combines artistic and scientific issues, which are accompanied by publications in the Bach-Jahrbuch, among others, and include topics such as the virtual reconstruction of historically significant concert halls and scenic performance practice. His most recent project in this area is the research and performance of the possibly unfinished Passion Oratorio BWV Anh. 169 from 1725, which he reconstructed and completed as a fragment. His teaching activities and guest lectures have also taken him to the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts and the Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo. He was a scholarship holder of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation.

Alexander Grychtolik studied harpsichord with Bernhard Klapprott at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT in Weimar and with Frédérick Haas at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. At the same time, he studied architecture at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, where he completed his doctorate in the field of musical cultural heritage conservation. He completed a second doctorate in musicology on Bach's secular cantatas in fragmentary tradition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg.