Oliver Drechsel

Drechsel is dedicated to the performance of 18th and 19th century piano music on original historical instruments from the Dohr Collection (Cologne). This includes piano works by the composers Ferdinand Hiller, Friedrich Kiel, Christian Gottlob Neefe, Christian Heinrich Rinck and Johann Wilhelm Wilms, most of which are world premiere recordings.

In addition to solo performances at home and abroad (including in the "Best of NRW" series) as well as radio recordings and CD productions, a further focus of his pianistic work lies in the field of chamber music, in which he performs with Christoph Lahme (harmonium) as a "liaison extraordinaire" as well as with Gernot Süßmuth (violin) and Dagmar Spengler (cello) as the "Piano Trio Cologne-Weimar". In 2003, Drechsel was artist in residence at the Rinck Festival Cologne.

Drechsel was born in Langenfeld (Rheinland). After initial lessons with his mother, the concert pianist Ruth Drechsel-Püster, he studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Roswitha Gediga-Glombitza and Pavel Gililov. Master classes with, among others, Peter Feuchtwanger, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling and the Alban Berg Quartet complemented this education, which he completed in 1998 with the Konzertexamen. In the same year he released his debut CD "Jürg Baur - Das Klavierwerk" and received the Culture Prize of the Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Rheinland [de] (support prize). For his compositions he received, among others, the 1st prize of the 2007 Siegburg Composition Competition [de].

Oliver Drechsel (born 10 May 1973) is a German concert pianist and composer.