Moritz Eggert I Belong This Road I Know - Btlchr71201 - Jazz - by Between The Lines

“I belong this road I know” - Moritz Eggert, born Heidelberg in 1965, knew at an early age the path he was going to take in life. After piano studies at a young age, he began his studies at Dr. Hochs Konservatorium in Frankfurt, first in piano and theory and then in composition. After graduating from high school, he studied piano at Frankfurt Music College with Leonard Hokanson. In 1992, he spent one year as a post-grad student at the Guildhall School for Music and Drama in London. Eggert was an award winner at the International Gaudeamus Contest for Interpretation of New Music in 1989. As the first pianist to do so, he performed the complete works for solo piano by Hans Werner Henze on one evening. He lived in Paris one year on a scholarship granted by the Cité Internationale des Arts and spent one year in the Villa Massimo as a Rome prizewinner. In 1997, Bavarian television produced a one-hour film portrait of him. He has been a member of the Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste since 2003. Eggert has received numerous distinctions as a composer, among others, the composition prize of the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Schneider-Schott Prize, 1st prized in the “Ad Referendum” contest of SMCQ in Montreal, the Siemens Promotion Prize and the Zemlinsky Prize. Together with Sandeep Bhagwati, he founded the A*Devantgarde Festival for new music of young composers in 1991, which took place for the seventh time in 2003. Eggert’s most well known works include the piano cycle “Hämmerklavier”. In addition to orchestra and chamber music, music theater is a special focal point of his compositions. He has composed seven full evening programs for opera and several pieces for dance theater and ballet till now. Although Eggert has worked in almost all genres between chamber music and music theater, piano music remains a special challenge for him. He began to compose the open piano cycle “Hämmerklavier” in 1995. In the meantime, it is the most popular composition by Eggert – his trademark so to say. “Hämmerklavier was created from the frustration that the piano pieces, which I had written until 1994, were characterized by the music that I had played as an interpreter. I realized that I had to have a much clearer concept before I began to compose.” Listeners will find a varied mixture of "Hämmerklavier XII: highway 61" to duets for violoncello and accordion and a piece for voice and tape recorder ("There was a building"). This is a recording, which makes the versatility of the composer and pianist Eggert clear.