3rd May 2024
For the next season 2024/2025 I got a spot at the Queen Sonja Opera Academy. This includes coaching and masterclases with world-known artists of the opera world as Lise Davidsen and Audun Iversen as well as coaches from the Met Opera in New York.
20th Mar 2023
I am happy to announce the release of my first studio recorded album with piano music by J.S. Bach and J. Brahms. In front of the op. 76 cycle of 8 Piano Pieces by Brahms that are rarely played in complete, the album features one of my personal favourites from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, the B-flat minor prelude and fugue from the first book. Both works, although very different in style and composing era, feature a very similar way of exposing a very intimate feeling of nostalgia and loneliness. While Bach stays within this field of feelings, Brahms takes these as a starting point to flourish into partly very contrasting character pieces that seem to me as if they contain the depth and richness of a whole lifetime.
The pianist and bass-baritone, born in 2001 in Schleswig, Northern Germany, began his varied musical education
in his early childhood. After initially learning the basics of the piano on his own as well as singing in church choirs
and playing the violin and viola, he began his piano education at the age of 10 with the Irish-German pianist
Kevin McKenna.
It was precisely this self-taught method that gave him an extremely natural and personal approach to music right
from the start.
This was followed by numerous concert appearances (also in cooperation with the state theater of Schleswig-Holstein)
and prizes at competitions (including the national Jugend musiziert competition).
After graduating from high school, he began his studies for an artistic piano bachelor’s degree at the University of Music in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2019 with Prof. Kalle Randalu, which he completed with distinction in 2023. In 2022, Julius von Forstner enthusiastically completed an ERASMUS exchange semester at the Arctic University of Tromsø, Norway, with Prof. Sergej Osadchuk. He also received further important impulses from Heike Allardt, Andrej Jussow, Vadim Palmov, at the Mattheiser Summer Academy, the Nordland Chamber Music Course and from Prof. Christopher Park during the Voksenåsen Summer Academy.
In addition to chamber music, song interpretation and contemporary music, his studies at the Karlsruhe University of Music also sparked a great interest in classical singing. In 2023, Julius von Forstner therefore began his classical singing studies with Prof. Holger Speck as a bass-baritone and has already built up a broad repertoire of songs as well as oratorio and opera arias. The combination of piano and singing offers him ideally complementary skills that greatly enrich him as a musician.
In the fall of 2023, Julius von Forstner moved to Oslo, Norway, also because of his great enthusiasm for the country and its culture. At the Norwegian Academy of Music, he began his master studies in performing arts with Prof. Håvard Gimse. At the same time, he is continuing his vocal studies at the Arctic University in Tromsø with Prof. Anne-Lise Sollied and Prof. Carlo Allemano.
