Katinka Von Richter biography

Katinka von Richter is a concert pianist and multidisciplinary artist from Munich, based in France, her adopted country, since 2015. Her artistic career has taken her to Switzerland, Italy, New York, Germany, South America, and France, notably in Paris, where she has lived and worked since being invited as an artist in residence of the CITÉ INTERNATIONALE DES ARTS, followed by several years at the RÉSIDENCE DES RÉCOLLETS, recognized for her interdisciplinary projects that link classical music with other art forms.

Katinka von Richter is a pianist characterized by great expressiveness, imagination, and sensitivity in her music. Her concerts are characterized by her sincere and wholehearted immersion into classical music as well as by a philosophical involvement with contemporary art. Her conviction is that everything that happens on stage is felt on stage, the performer being both creator and part of the staging. 

Live broadcasts on Radio France, Radio Ticino, Israeli Radio, Fréquence Protestante, Radio Maria Paris, as well as her concerts and her own short films, excite her audience. Her on-stage creations of "concert-performances" are presented in museums such as the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, the Musée national Port-Royal, the Fondation Pernod Ricard, and the Konzertsaal Bern. Her concert with the original staging "Kunst trifft Kunst" for the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart was presented on television on i24 Culture. She also performs classical programs in concert halls such as the Salon Michelin, the Konzertverein Ingolstadt, the Salle Cortot in Paris, and the Municipal Theater of Lima in Peru. Her new album featuring the Sonatas No. 2 and No. 3 by Johannes Brahms was released by Klanglogo/Rondeau in 2023 and was presented live on Radio France, among others.

Distinguished by her artistic excellence and unique projects, Katinka von Richter created the series of her own short films "Instant Piano Paris" on her YouTube channel. Already during her studies, she won several prizes for her original concert-performances with staging, such as the transcription for two pianos of Igor Stravinsky's Petrouchka, specially written for her by Anatol Ugorski.

Her pianism is deeply influenced by Anatol Ugorski and Oxana Yablonskaya, Emeritus of the Juilliard School in New York. Katinka von Richter graduated with distinction from the soloist Master’s in the class of Anatol Ugorski and the Konzertexamen at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold. Dina Ugorskaja intensely accompanied her in her journey and shaped her perception and understanding of sound. She also benefits from the artistic inspirations of Elisa Virsaladze, Lang Lang, and Ivan Klansky in regular masterclasses. In Paris, she completed her soloists studies in 2021 in the class of Jean-Bernard Pommier at the École Normale de Musique de Paris Alfred Cortot.

Katinka von Richter collaborates regularly with the conductors and former students of Sergiu Celibidache Prof. Lang and Konrad von Abel, as she is dedicated for many years to the phenomenology of music in philosophical and applied form in music.

Since 2023, she has been a professor in the academic cycle piano solo at the Rachmaninoff Conservatory in Paris.

CV - Academic career 

From a very young age, Katinka von Richter discovered her love for music through improvisations and her own songs and compositions. At the age of five, she began her piano lessons and quickly gained recognition for her precocious talent. By the age of nine, she won the first prize at the International Competition in Stresa, Italy. In the same year, she was accepted as a junior student at the Lucerne Conservatoire in Switzerland.

In Munich, she studied with the French pianist Prof. Claude-France Journès, who admitted her to her class at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in solo piano at the Conservatorio Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, where she won the competition for the best finalist students by performing Mendelssohn's 1st Piano Concerto with the orchestra. She was also selected to play her final program with pieces by Olivier Messiaen, broadcast on Radio Ticino.

Katinka von Richter continued her piano solo studies with Oxana Yablonskaya, Emeritus of the Juilliard School, who invited her to live and work in New York and later admitted her to her class at the Oxana Yablonskaya Piano Institute in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, Italy, where she successfully graduated.

Highly committed to social projects such as free concerts for refugees and voluntary performances in nursing homes, churches, prisons, and psychiatric hospitals, Katinka was awarded a grant from the Hannes Frank Foundation in 2014.

With Anatol Ugorski, Katinka von Richter completed her Master’s degree in solo performance with distinction at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold and was accepted to continue her studies for the Konzertexamen, which she completed in 2016. 

Her close collaboration with violinist Thomas Christian deeply inspired her and expanded her chamber music repertoire. Performing as a duo, she obtained a teaching assistantship in his class at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold. During this period, Katinka recorded César Franck's sonata with violinist Hagar Maoz, which was broadcast on Israeli Radio.

Master classes with Elisa Virsaladze, Lang Lang, and Ivan Klansky further inspired and complemented her artistic vision. Lang Lang became her mentor throughout her piano career. Dina Ugorskaya accompanies her during many years of her studies and influences deeply her understanding of sound and perception of music. At the École Normale de Musique de Paris, she completed her soloist studies in the “perfectionnement” class with Jean-Bernard Pommier.

Katinka von Richter is known for her great expressivity, imagination, and sensitivity in music. Her concerts are marked by her total immersion in classical music while creating a real link with contemporary art. At the Cité des Arts, Katinka established her exceptional concept of ‘concert-performances,’ showcasing a symbiosis between classical music and contemporary art. Collaborations with contemporary artists and actors significantly contribute to her understanding of contemporary artistic stagings, installations, and performances. In a unique way, she transcends boundaries, transforming the stage and sometimes the entire room into a true work of art. In all of her projects, she draws her inspiration primarily from the musical work itself.

She had already achieved great success with this concept during her Master's studies as a soloist, winning first prize and the Audience Prize in the Music and Mediation competition by performing and creating musical staging of her interpretation of pieces by Sergei Prokofiev. She won several competitions with her projects during this time, notably the transcription for two pianos of Igor Stravinsky's Petrouchka, written especially for her by Anatol Ugorski.

Katinka von Richter collaborates regularly with the conductors and former students of Sergiu Celibidache Prof. Lang and Konrad von Abel, as she is dedicated for many years to the phenomenology of music in philosophical and applied form in music.

Since 2023, she has been a solo piano teacher at the Rachmaninoff Conservatory in Paris.