"Historical piano" at the HfMT

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As part of the collaboration with the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, "Historisches Clavier" was established as a new subject for piano students. This subject will be led by Tomasz Ritter, who will conduct lessons and concerts for piano students on historical pianos such as Könicke (1796), Brodmann (1815), Pleyel (1847), Streicher (1863) and Steinway (1872) in the collection of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg.

The development of the field of historical pianos at the HfMT was initiated in 2011 by Prof. Hubert Rutkowski and leads to a further profiling of the piano department.

VITA
Tomasz Ritter is winner of the 1st prize at the Musica Antiqua Competition in Bruges (2024) and the 1st International Chopin Competition on historical instruments in Warsaw (2018). The pianist and fortepianist was born in Lublin (Poland) in 1995. After graduating from the Szymanowski School of Music in Warsaw in the class of I. Rumiancewa, Ritter continued his studies at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in piano and fortepiano with A. Lyubimov and harpsichord with M. Uspienskaya. During his studies, he was also a student of M. Voskressensky. In 2021 he received his concert exam with distinction at the Hamburg University of Music and Drama in the class of H. Rutkowski. Historical instruments and historically informed performance practice have fascinated Ritter since he was 10 years old thanks to the harpsichord maker P. Šefl.
During his studies in Moscow, he took part in masterclasses with M. Bilson, A. Staier, T. Beghin, T. Koch and J. Sonnleitner. Ritter regularly collaborates with important European instrument collections and piano restorers such as P. McNulty and E. Beunk and realizes projects such as concerts, recordings and live streams. At the same time, his training has been influenced by the modern piano tradition since early childhood. He studied with I. Rumiancewa and attended master classes with V. Merzhanov, T. Shebanowa and others.
Ritter has given concerts in Europe, Japan, the USA, Russia and Canada. He has performed with the Polish Radio Orchestra, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, the {oh!} Historical Orchestra and with the Bach Collegium Japan under the direction of conductors such as J. Maksymiuk, M. Suzuki, V. Luks, Ł. Borowicz, A. Duczmal, M. Moś, G. Nowak, M. Pijarowski, D. Vermeulen and I. Hobson on. He has performed chamber music with the Kvarteto Martinů, the Stradivari Quartet, the Royal String Quartet and the Consone Quartet. In 2019, he gave a memorial recital for Arthur Rubinstein at Carnegie Hall in New York. Further appearances have taken him to the Warsaw Philharmonic, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, BOZAR in Brussels, Zaryadye Hall and the Moscow Conservatory, among others. In 2022, he toured the USA for two months with the Wieniawski Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of W. Rodek.
His first album with works by Bach, Beethoven, Szymanowski and Ginastera was released on the Polskie Nagrania label in 2014. In 2019, the Chopin Institute released a CD with works by Chopin and Kurpiński. His latest CD was also released by the Chopin Institute in June 2023 and contains works by Haydn, Lessel, Beethoven, Voříšek and Chopin, recorded on a Graf fortepiano. In 2019, he took part in an ARTE documentary about Chopin's life in Warsaw. Since 2024 he has been a lecturer in historical piano at the Feliks Nowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz.