Michael Gees

MICHAEL GEES wins Steinway competition in 1961 and subsequently studies music in Salzburg, Wien and Detmold. At the age of fifteen Michael Gees flees the predetermined competitional career, leaves school, conservatory and home behind, supports himself by working as archeological assistant and, in the process, becomes a sailor.

Chance leads him back to the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Hannover, where he resumes his compositional studies and eventually graduates. He now develops pianistic chops, composes and gains international renown as lied accompanist with Christoph Pregardien. All the while, he nurses and feeds his preference for combining the performance of music of past masters with living inspiration, thereby creating innovative performances with his instrument.

In 1989, Gees founds forum kunstvereint as a structure on which he later builds the Consol Theater which opens its doors in 2001. There children, youths and adults alike are encouraged to artistically participate and to realize their own creative impulses.

Productions with Bella Adamova, Julia Kleiter, Anna Lucia Richter, Christoph and Julian Prégardien as well as his solo CDs ImproviSatie, Beyond Schumann and Bach — Mendelssohn — Anverwandlungen show Michael Gees increasingly in his element of creative handling of the musical heritage.

Michael Gees works on concert formats between tradition and unknown territory.

He is particularly interested in passing on his experience as an improvising musician.

Since 2009 he has been teaching vocal chamber music, song finding (Liederfindung) and

instrumental improvisation at the Hochschule fur Musik und Tanz in Cologne.