MARTIN STURM

ORGANIST

IMPROVISATION

COMPOSITION


Martin Sturm, born 1992 in South Germany, is winner of numerous international competitions: 1st prize and special prize for the best performance on the historical organs of the ION International Organ Competition Nuremberg 2018, 1st Prize of the International Improvisation Competition Schwäbisch Gmünd 2017, 1st Prize of the Improvisation Competition of the International Organ Festival St Albans 2013 and Audience Award of the International Improvisation Competition Haarlem 2016. 2018 he was awarded the Bavarian Culture Prize by Bayernwerk AG under the patronage of the Bavarian Ministry of Science and Art, 2017 Prize of the Keck-Köppe Foundation of the University of Würzburg for his "exceptional artistic achievements, especially in the areas of organ playing and improvisation".

International concert activities as an interpreter and organ improviser lead him to outstanding festivals as to important churches and concert halls. He also appears regularly as a musician on  historic keyboard instruments and as jazz pianist. 

2019 he was appointed Professor for Organ and Organ Improvisation at the University of Music "Franz Liszt" in Weimar (Germany), after teaching at the Universities of Music in Würzburg and Leipzig.

As a composer he has produced a large oeuvre and received commissions by the Monteverdichor Würzburg and the John Cage Organ Foundation Halberstadt. Sturm also initiated and supervised various organ building and restoration projects.

As a scholarship holder of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, he studied Church Music and Organ at the University of Music in Würzburg with Prof. Christoph Bossert, followed by an Concert Exam at the University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig with Prof. Martin Schmeding and Prof. Thomas Lennartz.