Biography
Swiss concert pianist Hans-Jürg Strub has enjoyed a career as a performer and teacher spanning over 30 years.
Born 1959 in Winterthur, Switzerland, concert activities as a soloist and chamber musician as well as teaching at the Zurich University of the Arts for a good 30 years have determined his musical life - whereby concertizing and teaching have a very positive influence on each other. Both activities aim at the conscious realization of inner connections of a composition with the corresponding expression on the piano.
He received his first musical training at the Winterthur Conservatory with Christoph Lieske. Already at this time he won numerous prizes at competitions; at the age of 14 he made his debut with orchestra, at 16 he gave his first piano recital, recordings on Swiss radio followed. Hans-Jürg Strub studied music at the Hanover Conservatory with Prof. Hans Leygraf, graduating in 1985 with a soloist's diploma.
Master classes with Tatjana Nikolajewa, Gaby Cassadesus and at the Bartók Seminar in Szombathely with Zóltan Kocsis and György Kurtág also had a formative influence on his musical development.
In 1981 he was awarded 3rd prize at the International Piano Competition in Jaén and - one year later - 2nd prize at the German University Competition. The Kiefer Hablitzel Foundation as well as the Migros-Genossenschaftsbund granted the pianist scholarships for several years. Three times he was a prize-winner at the "Concours Piano 80", and in 1986 he was awarded the silver medal at the "Festival de Jeunes Solistes" in Bordeaux.
After teaching for several years at the Hanover Conservatory, Hans-Jürg Strub has been leading a concert and soloist diploma class at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK since 1988.
Pedagogical work with young musicians is his passion, with the greatest emphasis on differentiated touch technique and conscious sound shaping. Awareness of the form of music is the basis for finding one's own personal expression. The goal is to grasp and feel the composer's intention in sound, structure and - ultimately summing it all up - in expression, and thus to make the music speak.
In 1995 and 1996 he was a lecturer at the interpretation course "J.S. Bach's "cantable Art in Playing"",in 1999 he founded his annual interpretation course in Weidenkam (at Lake Starnberg). He regularly gives master classes in Japan and since 2002 in Tbilisi (Georgia), where he was awarded an honorary professorship in 2006.
His concert activities as a soloist and chamber musician have taken Hans-Jürg Strub, besides Switzerland, mainly to Germany and Japan. He has performed with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the Winterthur City Orchestra under conductors such as Gerd Albrecht, Mario Venzago, Theodor Guschlbaur, Marc Tardue, Johannes Schlaefli and others. In addition to a live recording of Rachmaninov's 2nd Concerto, a solo CD with works by Mozart, Berg, Brahms, Schumann has been released. His latest album, Schuberts last two piano sonatas, was produced for Ars-Produktion in 2020.