Our featured artist today is highly acclaimed German pianist, Jonas Stark who started taking piano lessons at 5 years old. He gained his Bachelor of Music at the Hochschule fur Musik (HFM) in Germany and obtained his Master’s degree and professional diploma from the Royal Academy of Music with professor Ian Fountain in London.
Since 2021, Jonas has been studying Soloklasse, a special degree in a German program, under professor Roland Kruger at Hochschule fur Musik, Theater and Medien in Hannover, where he is also holding a teaching position for piano since 2023.
Jonas won numerous piano competitions in Frankfurt, Munich, Paris among many others. The latest was his win at the HongKong International Piano Competition in 2022.
We had a chance to interview Jonas about his music and his forthcoming concert and masterclass in Manila this October, respectively. Here is that conversation.
Can you tell us about your journey as a professional pianist?
I don’t come from a strong musical background in the sense that my parents are not musicians. But from early on, my parents tried to expose me to classical music as one aspect of my upbringing and I seemed to respond very well to it, so my mother went on and taught me some things at the piano which she learned herself as a child. Afterwards, I was lucky to meet the best piano teacher I could have asked for — she really opened my ears for all the beautiful repertoire there is, later prepared me for concerts and competitions and eventually encouraged me to become a professional pianist. Since then I have completed my Bachelor, Master and Artist Diploma degrees in piano at conservatories in Germany and the United Kingdom, played in concerts and competitions in many more countries and came to realize what it means to earn an instrument and have a life in music: it is a never-ending journey of self-discovery, improvement and inspiration and one gets to meet innumerable fantastic teachers, colleagues and friends along the way.
What was it like when you won the First Prize at the 6th HongKong International Piano Competition in 2022? What keeps you motivated to join piano competitions worldwide?
It is no secret that the path of musicians often includes the participation in many competitions in the early stages of the career. And as much as I have always been disturbed by the idea of competing against other musicians, they usually are an excellent way to prepare a lot of different repertoire, gain performance experiences under professional and stressful circumstances and gain international recognition and audience, no matter the result! In addition, you get to travel to interesting places, play in top venues and get to know the important people in the business — both amongst the jury members and fellow participants.
When entering the HongKong Competition 2022, my biggest motivation was to get to play as many of the beautiful pieces I had prepared as possible, especially as reaching the final round meant to perform a piano concerto together with orchestra and world famous conductor Marin Alsop. I already felt like a winner when playing the last chords of Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto, the jury announcement in the evening then somehow was “just” the cherry on top as it meant I will come to HongKong every year now to perform chamber music and solo recitals.
What are your expectations of the Filipino audience and music students with your upcoming concert and masterclass in the Philippines?
I haven’t met many Filipinos in my life until now, but the ones I do know are the most warm-hearted and welcoming people I have ever met. With that in mind, I am very much looking forward to share my music with more of them, both in the concert and the masterclass. I am excited to see the interest the Manila students show in European classical music and eager to hear their interpretations of pieces — and it is always fun to talk about music and share an idea or two.
Tell us about your program for October 20. What made you decide on that specific program?
I tried to choose pieces which I thought would reflect my personality best but which would still offer a great variety of styles and sounds to the audience. With Schubert maybe being the composer closest to my heart, I definitely wanted to include a substantial work: the late C minor Sonata. It is full of melancholy and dark thoughts but also with the most heavenly moments of light in-between-a light which may be not so different from the one Beethoven invites us to see in his Andante favori. In both the Liszt transcription and the Janacek sonata one can follow the dramatic story so closely, one can almost imagine unspoken words, which I always find very exciting for both myself and the audience. And the variations by young Szymanowski are just too much fun to play to not include them — one can hear him being influenced by Chopin, Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Schumann while finding his very own personal voice.
What more do you want to achieve when you look back at your accomplishments?
I think I don’t really spend many thoughts on what more to achieve but rather about which pieces I would really love to play next or later in my life. And I believe everything else somehow arranges itself around this — which hall to play in next, which orchestra to perform with next. Apart from that, I discover that I increasingly enjoy teaching, so I am planning to spend more and more time and thoughts on this wonderful interaction with music too.
What advice can you share with the next generation of pianists?
It may sound somewhat poetical, but my main advice is that everything can be found within the music itself. Music is meant to be a reflection of life and vice versa, so I can only encourage everyone to both treat music and life with utmost respect and observe it in great detail, then everything will make sense long-term.
As for more practical advice, don’t practice too much but don’t practice too little. Listen to as many pieces and composers as you can and once in a while, grab a book and some chocolate and spend an afternoon in nature.
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The Transzendenz Concert featuring pianist Jonas Stark will be on October 20, 3 p.m. at St. Cecilia’s Hall, St. Scholastica’s College. The concert is produced by Inna Montesclaros and is generously presented by St. Scholastica’s College School of Music and the Piano Teachers Guild of the Philippines Foundation Inc.
Tickets are at P1,000. For inquiries, contact 09495019959/ 09771969669/ 09178627100 or email innamontesclarospianist@gmail.com.
To get regular updates from the artist, visit www.jonasstark.de.
