Philipp Thönes

Between Interpreter and Composer

In his playing, the pianist Philipp Thönes combines the tradition of the classical piano repertoire, of composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Liszt, with an unmistakable voice of his own, also including his own works in his programmes.

Born in Rostock in 2001, he began his musical training at the Rostock Conservatory and the Young Academy Rostock. Since October 2020 he has been studying piano at the Rostock University of Music and Theatre, initially with Professor Bernd Zack and currently in his master’s studies with Professor Matthias Kirschnereit.

Philipp Thönes has won first prizes at the International Novák Piano Competition in the Czech Republic, at the national competition ‘Jugend musiziert’ (Germany) and at the International Global Online Great Composers Competition. In 2023, each time with a special prize, he was honoured as a semi‑finalist at the Ettore Pozzoli Piano Competition and as a finalist at the 9th International Béla Bartók Piano Competition in Graz.

Philipp Thönes is a scholarship holder of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) and, as a selected artist of PIANONews‑records, recorded his first CD in 2021.

He has taken master classes with Janina Fialkowska, Matthias Kirschnereit, Pavel Gililov, Bernd Goetzke, Johan Schmidt, Douglas Humpherys and Galina Ivantsova.

Philipp Thönes is also successful in the field of chamber music. At the ‘Verfemte Musik’ interpretation competition in 2022, together with his clarinet duo partner, he won first prize as well as the ‘Exilarte’ special prize, which led to a concert at the Vienna Konzerthaus.

In March 2026 he made his debut as a soloist in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in the Chamber Music Hall of the Berlin Philharmonie.

On 22 May 2026, to great acclaim, he gave the premiere of his piano concerto with the Prussian Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Jürgen Bruns at the Theater Putbus, as part of the Putbus Festival. Further compositions of his own, including his piano sonata in B‑flat minor, have been released on the usual streaming platforms.