Uta Weyand – Germany

German-born pianist Uta Weyand comes from a musical family. The daughter of a choir conductor and an organist, she grew up with choral music and the organ repertoire. During childhood she expressed her extraordinary musical talent not only at the piano, but also excelled at the violin, voice, and music composition.

The Post and Courier (South Carolina) predicted her success, stating, “Weyand is a pianist of genius, who should have a long career.” And the Nuremberg News confirmed, “…especially admirable is her amazing ability to make the great Steinway sing and wrest many captivating colors from it.”

After her studies in Freiburg (Germany), Baltimore, and Madrid, with Elza Kolodin, Vitaly Margulis, Leon Fleisher, and Joaquín Soriano, Ms. Weyand has had great international success, giving numerous piano recitals and appearing with orchestras in most European countries, Russia, Brazil, Cuba, and the United States. She has performed with the Madrid Symphony, Barcelona Symphony, Valencia Orchestra, Nuremberg Symphony, Bamberg Symphony, Stuttgart Philharmonic, and National Orchestra of Brazil, and with such conductors as Jesús López Cobos, José Ramón Encinar, Enrique García Asensio, Manuel Galduf, Jac van Steen, Marc Tardue, and Gabriel Chmura.

After several scholarships granted by the German government, Ms. Weyand won first prize in the Steinway Piano Competition in Berlin and first prize in the José Iturbi International Piano Competition in Valencia in 1996, with two special prizes: one for the best interpretation of Spanish music and the other for Spanish contemporary music.

Since then she has greatly widened her repertoire, covering all musical eras from Baroque to contemporary music. Having lived in Spain for more than 10 years, Ms. Weyand is a passionate interpreter of the Spanish piano literature. She dedicates herself to unknown or neglected piano works, performing music by Montsalvatge, Guridi, Ohana, and Dupont, among many others. She worked closely together with such composers as Michael Braunfels and Xavier Montsalvatge.

Uta Weyand received worldwide acclaim for her recordings for Hänssler Classics with music by Schumann, Mozart, Debussy, Montsalvatge, and Granados, and the Complete Original Works for Piano by Manuel de Falla.

She combines her dynamic concert life with pedagogical activities, giving master classes and conferences in Germany, Spain, Brazil, Cuba, and China. In 2000, she became a professor at the Conservatorio Superior de Musica in Castellon, Spain. Since 2002, she has been teaching at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid. She is regularly a member of international piano competition juries such as Gina Bachauer in Salt Lake City, Franz Liszt in Weimar, José Iturbi in Valencia, and Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan, among others.