HfMDK Frankfurt awards honorary doctorate to Christoph Eschenbach

The award ceremony will take place on February 4, 2024 as part of a discussion concert at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts.

Christoph Eschenbach is an outstanding artist of our time, precisely because he never tires of putting his contemporaneity, his biographical experiences, the effects and possibilities of music into dialog with each other and actively communicating them to people and the younger generation of artists. His artistic achievement is always an obligation to society, a responsibility for dealing with our musical heritage and the new things that music gives us to discover.

On July 10, 2023, the Senate of the HfMDK decided to award Christoph Eschenbach, the musician, conductor, pianist, music researcher, mentor of young musicians and promoter of musical development, the academic degree of an honorary doctorate. Christoph Eschenbach is closely associated with Kronberg Academy and the Bachelor's and Master's degree programs run jointly by Kronberg Academy and the HfMDK.

Christoph Eschenbach has been active in Hesse for decades: In addition to his work as an artistic advisor and lecturer at Kronberg Academy, he is a regular guest of the hr Symphony Orchestra and has been awarded the Paul Hindemith Prize of the city of Hanau in 2016.

Above all it is Eschenbach's extraordinary commitment to young artists, to the development of talent and to the most diverse pedagogical and didactic forms of music education that gives us reason to honor him and a motivation to talk to him - in the language of music, but also with words.

For reserved press seats, please register in advance with Lorna Lüers: lorna.lueers@hfmdk-frankfurt.de, 069-154007333

Christoph Eschenbach (born February 20, 1940 in Wrocław) grew up as a war orphan with his mother's cousin, the pianist Wallydore Eschenbach, in Schleswig-Holstein and Aachen. His lessons with her laid the foundations for a brilliant musical career. After studying with Eliza Hansen (piano) and Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg (conducting), his first prizes as a pianist at the ARD Competition in 1962 and the Concours Clara Haskil in 1965 paved the way for his international career.

Christoph Eschenbach began his musical career as a sensitive concert pianist and at the same time developed into an outstanding conductor with an enormous artistic range. Concerto, opera, chamber music, world premieres, lieder - from J. S. Bach to Romanticism and contemporary music - Eschenbach's impressive repertoire is reflected in his outstanding discography, which has won numerous prizes.

With great openness and curiosity, Christoph Eschenbach has followed a unique artistic path that - even at over 80 years of age - continues to lead to new turns and encounters. He was chief conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin until June 2023. From the 2024/25 season, he will be Artistic Director of the National Music Forum NFM in his native city of Wrocław. Christoph Eschenbach is a Knight of the Légion d'honneur, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres, recipient of the German Federal Cross of Merit and winner of the Leonard Bernstein Prize. In 2015, he was awarded the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize as a pianist and conductor.