Jürg Hanselmann
Jürg Hanselmann received his first music lessons at the Liechtensteiner Music School in Vaduz. His earliest compositions date from this time. At the age of seventeen, he entered the Bern Conservatory, Switzerland and studied piano with Albert Schneeberger and Kristina Steinegger, also Harmony and Counterpoint with Erwin Hochuli. He received his Teaching Diploma in the spring of 1980 and in the following summer, the Soloist Diploma with Distinction. To further his pianistic studies, he went to London to study with the Hungarian pianist Louis Kentner and to Frankfurt with the Russian pianist Irina Edelstein. He also participated in Master Classes held by the Beaux Arts Trio and Mieczieslaw Horszowski. From 1983, he studied composition and analysis for several years with Sandor Veress. Through Veress, Jürg Hanselmann can trace a musical pedigree back to his countryman Rheinberger. Veress was a pupil of Kodaly who studied with Hans (Janos) Koessler. Koessler himself was a pupil of Rheinberger.
The list of compositions by Jürg Hanselmann include works for piano, concertos, orchestra, choral and chamber music and Lieder.
He has received several awards such as the
- Eduard-Tschumi Prize Bern, 1980
- Prize of the Jubilee Foundation of the Swiss Volksbank 1980
- Migros Competition Zürich, 1983
- Rotary Prize Liechtenstein 1987
- Cultural prize of the International Bodensee Conference 1991 Munich
- Josef Gabriel Rheinberger Prize Vaduz, 2005
In May 2012 Jürg Hanselmann’s Ricercare for Wind Quintet won the first prize in the he competition “Klang der Welt” under the patronage of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin.
His concert career has taken him to several European countries and the USA. Included in his numerous CD recordings is the complete recording of the piano works of Rheinberger on 11 CD’s that has received international acclaim as has his CD “The Railway in Piano Music”.