Hannes Pohlit

Hannes Pohlit (born in 1976 in Heidelberg) is a German pianist and composer with Polish roots and lives in Leipzig. He grew up in Haßloch (Rhineland-Palatinate) and had his first piano lessons at the age of six, also he learned to play the French Horn and the Organ. At the age of 14, he wrote his first compositions and was awarded the Promotional Award by the German Composers Society. He studied in Frankfurt, Munich, Leipzig and Weimar composition (with Hans Zender, Hans-Jürgen von Bose and Reinhard Pfundt), orchestral conducting (with Gert Bahner and Gunter Kahlert), piano (with Hanns-Martin Schreiber) and music theory (with Gesine Schroeder). His rich repertory as a pianist includes the most notable works by his favourite composers Franz Liszt, Claude Debussy and Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Since 2010, he has been passionately involved in various teaching positions as a lecturer for music theory at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig, as an assistant professor for score playing and piano accompaniment at the University of Music „Franz Liszt“ Weimar as well as a visiting professor for piano at the University of Music of Venice (Conservatorio di musica “Benedetto Marcello” Venezia).

He worked as a conductor with the Jena Philharmonic, the Thuringian Philharmonic Gotha-Suhl and with the Erfurt Opera House, as well as with the ensemble leipzig 21 (as its Artistic Director) and conducted many first performances of the works of contemporary composers. 2014 he was the artist in residence of the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte in Montepulciano, a festival which was founded by Hans Werner Henze. For the new staging of J. W. Goethe’s Faust at the Thuringian State Theatre Rudolstadt he created 2015 a new symphonic stage music for soloists, choir and orchestra. In occasion of the Liszt-year 2011 he wrote the orchestra paraphrase La Chapelle de François Liszt, commissioned by the Thuringen Symphony Orchestra. Hannes Pohlit’s compositions are published in the Friedrich Hofmeister Music Publisher (Leipzig), including Il Vento für large orchestra, the piano trio Les Lumières de la Nuit, the violin concerto Humanité as well as his twelve Paraphrases de Tango for solo piano, which continues with the tradition of the virtuoso paraphrase by Franz Liszt. He is also well connected to Blüthner, one of the most famous piano manufacturers, and he appreciates the warm sound of the Blüthner grand piano as the ideal instrument for his interpretations.

A portrait about the artist was produced and broadcasted by the SWR in 2019. His debut solo-album “The Hour of Spirits” (with works by Hans Werner Henze, George Enescu and Franz Liszt) was released in the label querstand in 2021.