Sontraud Speidel

http://www.sontraud-speidel.de/e-index.htm

She was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, and started piano lessons at the age of five.

At the age of eleven, she entered the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe where she studied with Irene Slavin (a Russian pedagogue) and Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen.

Then followed studies with Branka Musulin in Frankfurt, Germany, Stefan Askenase in Brussels, Belgium and Géza Anda in Luzerne, Switzerland.

After winning various awards in Germany (amongst others at the age of 16, the first prize in a competition including all schools in Germany), she won the first prize of the Johann Sebastian Bach International Piano Competition in Washington D.C.

She is also the recipient of the Boston Symphony's Jackson Prize for Modern Music and Italy's Ettore Pozzoli Prize.