Education
Martin Helmchen began his piano studies at the age of 6, and graduated from the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory as a student of Galina Iwanzowa, and in 2001 from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover as a student of Arie Vardi.
Martin Helmchen began his piano studies at the age of 6, and graduated from the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory as a student of Galina Iwanzowa, and in 2001 from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hannover as a student of Arie Vardi.
In 2006 he was awarded the Crédit Suisse Award, for his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic, directed by Valery Gergiev, playing Schumanns Piano Concerto at the Lucerne Festival. He has given concerts with the San Francisco Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Deutschen Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai Symphony Orchestra. His specialty is chamber music, where he has performed extensively with Heinrich Schiff and Marie-Elisabeth Hecker.
Collaborations with further artists have included Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Sharon Kam, Tabea Zimmermann, Juliane Banse, Julia Fischer, Sabine Meyer and Lars Vogt.
Helmchen"s first orchestral Civil Defense was released in 2007 with piano concerti from Mozart, and his first solo Civil Defense with works of Schubert was released in 2008. In 2009, two further CDs were released:
with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg: Robert Schumann, Piano Concerto a minor operation
54 and Antonín Dvořák, Piano Concerto g minor op.33
with Sharon Kam und Gustav Rivinius, Johannes Brahms, Two Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano, operation 120 and Trio for Piano, Clarinet, and Violoncello operation