Christian Erny

Most recently, Christian Erny conducted the Morphing Chamber Orchestra for a new recording with music by Arvo Pärt for the Aparté label alongside Roberto Alagna, Aleksandra Kursak and Andreas Scholl. He also worked with Roberto Gonzales Monjas and Ian Bostridge in a Bach cantata project of the Musikkollegium Winterthur. Along the ensembles he has conducted are the Morphing Chamber Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival Strings, the Chor des Bayrischen Rundfunks, the Florianer Sängerknaben, the Orchestra of Europe, the baroque orchestra Les passions de l’Ame, the Sofia Symphony Orchestra, the Ruse Opera Orchestra and the Young Philharmonic Orchestra of Central Switzerland. He made his opera debut in 2019 at the Luzerner Theater. He was employed as musical assistant to the choirs of the Winterthur Conservatory from 2012 to 2018.

Erny’s passion for contemporary music and his sensitive and innovative programming have brought him together with some of todays important composers. He has premiered works by Arvo Pärt (EST), Rhiannon Rhandle (GB), Patrick Brennan (NIR), Kevin Hartnett (USA) and Julian Revie (USA). He also realized the world premiere recording of the work O magnum mysterium by the Norwegian composer Marcus Paus. Future engagements will lead to an exciting collaboration with the Pulitzer Price winning composer Caroline Shaw.

As a pianist Erny has recorded works by Lourié, Mozart, Schönberg, Debussy and Liszt. His recordings got nominated for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Opus Klassik and have received further awards such as the Gramophone Editor’s Choice. In 2015 he received a prize for the best interpretation of a work by Arnold Schönberg at the Île de France International Piano Competition. He so far has given concerts in Europe, the USA and South America. In 2019 he was awarded the Cultural Achievement Prize of his home town Winterthur for his artistic work to date.

Initially trained as a pianist and chorister as well as being a rock musician and songwriter throughout his whole youth, the broad education that Christian Erny received from the age of six at the conservatory of his hometown Winterthur gives him the opportunity today to convince in the most diverse musical areas and to radiate a great stylistic diversity and confidence. His repertoire ranges from the vocal polyphony of the Renaissance to Baroque opera and symphonic music of the 20th century. He holds degrees from the Zurich University of the Arts, the Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington (USA) and the Lucerne University. He studied orchestral conducting with Howard Arman and Christof Brunner, choral conducting with Markus Utz and piano with Hans-Jürg Strub and Jean-Louis Haguenauer. He received formative inspiration as a pianist at the Jiri Hlinka Piano Academy in Bergen (NO) from Leif Ove Andsnes and Eldar Nebolsin.

A passionate and sought after pedagogue, Christian Erny is lecturer for piano at the Basel University School of Music and head of the music pre-college department at the Pedagogical Seminary in Kreuzlingen. As a guest he has taught at the Renaissance Arts Academy in Los Angeles and at the Collegio Suizo in Santiago de Chile.