Christoph Gotthardt

For Christoph Gotthardt music education, artistry, musicology and music communication are simply different facets of a musician’s field of work. He completed his school music degree with distinction and went on to take further studies in musicology, music education und conducting. He completed his artistic training in Frankfurt in 1992 and was awarded an artistic degree as a pianist. He was also one of the first graduates of the innovative study programme in Music Communication in Detmold.

He works in a broad range of fields – as a piano soloist, a chamber musician, an independent member of a folk band, a répétiteur and a choir and orchestra conductor at various opera houses and theatres in addition to his activities as a music teacher and music communicator. He is in charge of the schoolchildren’s concerts, a longstanding tradition in the city of Frankfurt and of Frankfurt’s interschool primary school choir. Since 2005 he has also had oversight on behalf of the Ministry of Education of the “Musical Primary School” programme which is run throughout the federal state of Hesse.

The idea of sharing his own enthusiasm for music prompted the committed music communicator and music teacher to take music in a variety of different forms to education establishments from day nurseries upwards. This involved him in designing and developing many different activities for youngsters in the area between culture and school.

The list of well-known artists and institutions that have built a relationship of trust with Christoph Gotthardt is long: Gerd Albrecht, Tabea Zimmermann, Christian Tetzlaff, the city of Frankfurt, Frankfurt’s Johann Goethe University, the Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester, the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt, the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, the Ensemble Modern, the Hessian Radio Broadcasting Company, the Goethe Institute and the automobile city of Wolfsburg.

His stated objective is not only to provide support for (highly) gifted youngsters but, in particular, to help to ensure that children from every section of society (“the best audience in the world”) have an opportunity to enrich their lives through good music. This view also lies behind his active involvement on the committee of the ProMusica association, which has been awarded the Berg Berndt Award by the board of trustees of the initiative "cultural Frankfurt" in 2019. In 2012 the city of Frankfurt am Main awarded Christoph Gotthardt its medal of honour in acknowledgement of his services in the field of music education.