Felix Hell

Felix Hell (born 14 September 1985) is a German organist.

Biography

Hell was born in Frankenthal, Rhineland-Palatinate, as the youngest of two children to Hans-Friedrich, a mechanical engineer and amateur pianist from that town, and Olga, a Russian bank worker. He began formal piano lessons at the age of seven, inspired by hearing his father play Bach's C-Major Prelude, which he proceeded to learn with his father's help in two or three days. It was only eight months later he decided to undertake organ lessons. In March 1994, during the year he was eight years old, he made his first solo appearance, playing the Prelude in F major from the Eight Short Preludes and Fugues for , principal organist at Speyer Cathedral; that easter, he was on duty in his first service as a liturgical organist, playing the organ at a Roman Catholic High Mass. Hell performed his first organ recital outside of Germany when Krämer took him to Russia to perform at the Saratov Conservatory at the age of eight in August 1994. He went on to present concerts on the organ in many countries around the world before his 11th birthday.

From the very beginning, Hell's piano teacher was Prof. Siegbert Panzer, German State Academy of Music, Mannheim.
Felix was formally educated by Eckard Mayer, at the Hochschule für Kirchenmusik Heidelberg, with Johannes Michel focusing on organ literature, and Christiane Michel focusing on improvisation. In this period of his education, he received additional training courses from professors Martin Lücker, Frankfurt; Pieter van Dijk, Amsterdam; Oleg Yantchenko, Moscow; Wolfgang Rübsam, Chicago; Leo Krämer, Speyer; Franz Lehrndorfer, Munich; Robert Griffith, Delaware/Ohio.

At the "Jugend musiziert" (Federal German competition for young musicians), he won two first prizes in organ-playing in 1994 and 1997 and two first prizes in piano-playing in 1996 and 1999.

In September 1999, Hell moved to the United States and enrolled at the Juilliard School, New York, where he had been awarded a merit-based full tuition scholarship, studying organ with Matthew Lewis and piano with Frank Levy. From 2001 to 2004 Hell studied, again under full tuition scholarship, at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he graduated in May 2004. Additional coaching while studying at Curtis by Martin Jean (Yale University), Donald Sutherland (Peabody Conservatory) and Marie-Claire Alain, Paris. He has also studied extensively with Dr. John Weaver at Juilliard, whom he expressed particular gratitude to during a performance at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York. He then played one of Weaver's own compositions.

In September 2004, Hell enrolled in both the Master of Music and the Artist Diploma programs at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, US, studying under the guidance of Donald Sutherland, attending additional courses held by Joan Lippincott, Princeton University, and Gillian Weir, London. He has since graduated with both degrees. His name, in German, means "bright", and he expressed amusement in the above-mentioned concert at Trinity Wall Street about finding out what his name meant in English when first coming to America. He went on to say that his dream is to someday found a conservatory for organ students, where the graduates will be able to say that they "got their degree from Hell".

Hell is the resident organist at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; He was Assistant Adjunct Professor of Organ at the nearby Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College from 2007 to 2022. He has previously been Organ Artist Associate at St. Peter's Church for twenty years. He also continues to concertize extensively, having performed his thousandth concert at the Zwölf-Apostel-Kirche in his hometown of Frankenthal on January 7, 2020. He has performed four "Bach marathons", concert series of all of the Bach organ works, encompassing about 250 compositions that take about 20 hours to perform.

In 2010, Hell married Grace Eun Hae Kim, a Korean pianist; they have performed in concerts together, both as concerto soloists and as partners in organ–piano duos. In the German summer of 2023, Hell moved back to Frankenthal with Kim and their daughter.

Discography

*''Felix Hell at St. Justinus'' (1999)
*''Orgelgiganten'' (2000)
*''Saint Peter's Church New York City'' (2000)
*''Felix Hell at the Great Schantz'' (2002)
*''Felix Hell in Concert'' (2002)
*''Mendelssohn at Methuen'' (2004)
*''Plays The Rieger-Kloss Organ'' (2005)
*''Organ Sensation'' (2006)
*''Felix Hell in Savannah'' (2006)
*''Felix Hell spielt Bach'' (2007)
*''Felix Hell – Organ and Orchestra'' (2014)
*''Heroic Proportions'' (2017)
*''Poetic Visions'' (2017)
*''Organ Fantasies: Masterworks by Bach, Liszt & Reger'' (2023)

References

External links

Official website

BACH & friends Documentary

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hell, Felix
1985 births
Living people
German classical organists
20th-century German organists
20th-century German male musicians
21st-century German organists
21st-century German male musicians
German male classical organists
German people of Russian descent
People from Frankenthal
Juilliard School alumni
Curtis Institute of Music alumni
Peabody Institute alumni
Gettysburg College faculty
German expatriates in the United States