Ilja Scheps (born 1956) is a Russian pianist living in Germany and professor at the

Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln The Cologne University of Music () is a public university of music and dance located in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Established in 1850 as the Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln, it is one of the largest music academies in Europe, w ...

, Department

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

Life and career

Scheps studied piano at the

Moscow Conservatory The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory () is a higher musical educational institution located in Moscow, Russia. It grants undergraduate and graduate degrees in musical performance and musical research. Th ...

, where he was later taken on as a teacher. Between 1982 and 1992, he performed mainly as a soloist with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. In the meantime, he has been invited to give guest performances in the US, Australia, China, Israel, Italy, Malta, New Zealand, Spain, Hungary and Turkey. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the founding of the Russian Federation in 1992, Scheps moved to Germany, where he taught as a private lecturer at the

Rostock University of Music and Theatre The Rostock University of Music and Drama (short HMT, Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock in German) is a College or university school of music, college of music in Rostock, Mecklenburg, Germany. It opened in 1994 and is situated in a ...

, at the

Dortmund Dortmund (; ; ) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the List of cities in Germany by population, ninth-largest city in Germany. With a population of 614,495 inhabitants, it is the largest city ...

department of the Detmold University of Music and at the Akademie für Tonkunst in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it the ...

. In 2003, he became professor of piano and

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, Aachen Department, where he rose to the position of director of the Aachen Department alongside Hans-Werner Huppertz and Claudia Kunz-Eisenlohr. In addition, he took over the direction of international

master class ''Master Class'' is a 1995 play by American playwright Terrence McNally, presented as a fictional master class by opera singer Maria Callas near the end of her life, in the 1970s. The play features incidental vocal music by Giuseppe Verdi, Giac ...

for pianists, including at the Landesmusikakademie NRW, and is also a jury member at internationally renowned competitions. Since 2006, Scheps has headed the international jury of the "Prix amadéo de piano", from 2015 at the , together with his university colleague Andreas Frölich from Aachen, as well as the organisers' association "MozARTE e.V.", which was founded for this purpose and is based in Aachen. He was also a member of the jury at the International Chopin Competition in Darmstadt in 2009 and was nominated as a jury member for the "2nd China Shenzhen International Piano Concerto Competition" of the Goethe-Institut China in

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

in October 2011. In addition, Scheps was appointed visiting professor at several universities in China. Scheps and his wife Tamara - also a pianist and piano teacher - are the parents of the pianists Olga Scheps and Anna Scheps. Ilya Scheps and his two daughters have performed together on several occasions.Ilya Scheps
on Muziekweb

Recordings

* Ilja Scheps (piano) and Sergej B. Jakovenko (baritone): '' Modest Mussorgski-Songs'', Arkiv-Music, 1991 * Ilja Scheps (piano) and Sergej B. Jakovenko (baritone): '' Valentyn Silvestrov: Stille Lieder, Liederzyklus für Singstimme und Klavier'', 2 CDs, Gräfelfing : ECM Records Verlag, Berlin, Universal-Music, 2004 * Ilja Scheps et al.: ''

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov. At the time, his name was spelled , which he romanized as Nicolas Rimsky-Korsakow; the BGN/PCGN transliteration of Russian is used for his name here; ALA-LC system: , ISO 9 system: .. (18 March 1844 – 2 ...

: Complete Songs'', Classical Music, 2009

References

External links

Biografie Ilja Scheps (in German)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Scheps, Ilja Russian classical pianists Academic staff of Moscow Conservatory Moscow Conservatory alumni 1956 births Living people Place of birth missing (living people)