“...her playing seems so unaffectedly natural and mature, as if music were her primary medium of communication: an inexhaustible means of expression and approach, the language of the heart, open and direct, always discreet and noble.”
(Susanne Schulte, Laudation GWK Music Prize 2021)
Born in 2001, Polish-German pianist Sonja Kowollik took her first piano lessons at the age of five in Münster, Germany. She became a junior student at the Jugendakademie Münster at the age of nine with Thomas Reckmann and Michael Keller. She studied with Claudio Martínez Mehner and Nina Tichman at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, and with Matti Raekallio at the Sibelius Academy Helsinki. Currently, Sonja is studying in the class of Eldar Nebolsin at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. She attended masterclasses with Kirill Gerstein, Andreas Staier, Robert Levin, Stephen Kovacevich, Dmitri Alexeev, Robert McDonald and Georg Friedrich Schenck among others.
Biography
Sonja performed at the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Encuentro de Santander, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival and the Euregio Musikfestival as well as in venues such as the Cologne Philharmonic, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Beethovenhaus Bonn and internationally in Europe, Asia and Australia. She appeared on German and Polish radio and television. As a soloist, she collaborated with the Sinfonieorchester Münster, the Camerata Hungarica and the Ruhrstadt Orchester among others.
Sonja has kindly been supported by the Jürgen Ponto Foundation, Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, Theodor Cordes Foundation, Reinhard Lüttmann Foundation, Club Soroptimist International Münster Mitte and Werner Richard – Dr. Carl Dörken Foundation. She is a scholar of the International Music Academy of Liechtenstein and takes part in the intensive weeks and activities of the academy.
Calendar
Sonja has been awarded with prizes such as the GWK Music Prize 2021, the International Bacewicz Prize 2022 and first prizes at the Bundeswettbewerb Jugend musiziert. She furthermore received special prizes by Yamaha Music Europe GmbH, Deutscher Tonkünstlerverband and Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben. At the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival 2017, she convinced the jury with “her well-balanced touch, keen sense for the shaping of musical lines and sympathetic aplomb” and received the Sponsorship Award by Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. She was selected as the first recipient of the Menahem Pressler Scholarship at the Oxford Piano Festival 2023. Being an enthusiastic and sought-after chamber musician in diverse constellations, she has been awarded various chamber music prizes such as the Beethoven Bonnensis Prize.
(Chr. Schulte im Walde, Westfälische Nachrichten, July 2016)
“For Kowollik, it is all about the music.
There is no moment of superficial self-presentation, no virtuosity is celebrated as an attitude.”
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2025
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