Hannes Pohlit is a German composer and pianist with Polish roots. Born in Heidelberg, he grew up in the sunny Rhineland-Palatinate and currently lives in Leipzig. His works have been published in the Friedrich Hofmeister Music Publisher Leipzig and in the Ries & Erler Music Publisher Berlin. His work list includes the sinfonietta for large orchestra Il Vento, the piano trio Les Lumières de la Nuit, the violin concerto Humanité and the clarinet quintet Nel Fiume eterno. After his first engagements as a conductor at the Erfurt Opera, as guest at the Nordhausen Opera, the Jena and Gotha Philharmonic orchestras and as Artistic Director of the ensemble leipzig 21, he developed a concert career as a pianist, which has taken him to several European countries. The works of Franz Liszt, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Claude Debussy are in the core of his extensive repertoire. He studied composition, piano and orchestral conducting in Frankfurt, Munich, Leipzig and Weimar and has been teaching as a full-employed docent at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar since 2017. In 2022 and 2023 he accepted invitations as a guest professor for piano-performance at the Conservatorio di Musica “Benedetto Marcello” in Venice. In 2014 he was the artist in residence of the “Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte” (founded by Hans Werner Henze) in Montepulciano (Italy) and in 2014/15 composer for the State Theatre Rudolstadt. In 2019 the SWR produced a broadcast-portrait about him in the series “Meeting Point Classic – extra”.
Hannes Pohlit has received composition commissions by the Fondazione Cantiere Internazionale di Montepulciano (as the composer in residence in 2014), by the Thuringian State Theatre Rudolstadt, the Thuringian Symphony Orchestra, the Ravel Ensemble of the Dortmund Philharmonic, the International Church Music Festival Oslo, the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra and the Künstlerhaus Edenkoben.
Alongside to his works of contemporary music, he has also created a special Tango-influenced post-Romantic»Salon«-style for the virtuoso piano which he wants to be seen in the tradition of Moszkowski and Rachmaninoff, whose works are also his preferred repertoire – alongside Debussy and Liszt – as a pianist. In this way he continues the old tradition of being a composer who is also a brilliant pianist. As a Blüthner Artist, he is connected to one of the most famous piano manufacturers and particularly appreciates the warm. singing tone of the Blüthner grand piano for his performances. His debut album The Hour of Spirits (Henze, Enescu, Liszt and Busoni) was released in 2021 by the classical label querstand, followed in 2023 by the album Paraphrases de Tango sur des mélodies de Carlos Gardel, the recording of the complete cycle of his own 12 virtuoso piano-pieces on Tango-melodies. For the festival in occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra, Hannes Pohlit composed – as an homage to the Argentine Tango as well as to Sergei Rachmaninoff – the Tango-Concerto for piano and orchestra and was the soloist in a series of concerts in autumn 2023, which achieved great success with the audience.
Radio portrait
SWR 2 Broadcast »Meeting Point Classic extra« (in German) /
guest: Hannes Pohlit (moderator: Dr. Burkhard Egdorf)