The faculty 2024

Our internationally acclaimed faculty members are at the heart of the IMAS masterclasses. With their artistry of the highest calibre, years of experience and passion for music, they provide incomparable inspiration and motivation for the young participants. IMAS offers four masterclass courses: the piano course takes place every year, and the other two instruments are on rotation.

Prof. Matti Raekallio

Pianist Matti Raekallio was born 1954 in Helsinki. He studied in his home country as well as with Maria Curcio in London, with Dieter Weber at the Vienna Academy of Music, and at the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatory in Russia.

Raekallio made his American debut in 1981 at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall. In his concerts, he has performed cycles of the complete piano Sonatas of Beethoven, Scriabin, and Prokofiev, as well as altogether 62 piano concertos. He has recorded about 20 albums, including an acclaimed set of the complete Prokofiev Sonatas. He first taught for 30 years at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki while also temporarily working as professor in Kungliga Musikhögskolan in Stockholm and at Western Michigan University. In 2005, Raekallio became professor of the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover, Germany. Two years later, in 2007, he was invited to join the faculty at Juilliard. He has held a part-time professorship at Bard College Conservatory and also holds a part-time professorship at Oberlin College Conservatory. In 2022, he retired from all school faculties and is now doing free-lance work, both live and remotely. His students include several first prize winners in major international competitions. He serves as an adjudicator and teaches master classes in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Raekallio’s doctorate (Dr. Mus.) from the Sibelius Academy focused of the history of piano fingering. Subsequently, Raekallio became a member of an international research team, investigating pianists’ fingering choices from the viewpoint of cognitive psychology.

Raekallio received the Leonie Sonning Foundation Grant (Denmark) in 1980, and was recipient of the five-year artist grant from the state of Finland three times. He served for three years (1998-2000) as a member of the Finnish Academy’s Council for Research of Culture and Society. In 2009, he received an honorary doctorate from the Estonian Academy of Music.

Prof. Christiane Iven

Christiane Iven was an internationally active opera and concert singer for three decades (1986 - 2015). Today she is a professor of voice and vice president at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich and also works as a director and coach.

She began her singing career as a mezzo-soprano and later switched to soprano. Christiane Iven was a permanent ensemble member at various theaters, including many years at the Stuttgart State Opera. There and at other German and European opera houses she worked with the directing team of Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito, with Calixto Bieito, Claus Guth, Peter Konwitschny, Luc Perceval, Andreas Homoki, Stephan Herheim, Andrea Moses and others.

Her most important roles were Octavian and Feldmarschallin (Rosenkavalier), Charlotte (Werther), Agathe (Freischütz), Didon (Les Troyens), Marie (Wozzeck), Kundry (Parsifal), Elvira (Don Giovanni), Emilia Marty (Die Sache Makropulos), Sieglinde (Walküre) and Isolde (Tristan und Isolde). Christiane Iven has given concerts with important conductors and orchestras (e.g. Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Oslo Philharmonic, Münchner Philharmoniker, Ensemble intercontemporaine, NDR Symphonie Orchester, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich) under the baton of Marc Albrecht, Teodor Currentzis, Michael Gielen, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Heinz Holliger, Manfred Honeck, Julia Jones, Marco Letonja, Sir Neville Marriner, Matthias Pintscher, Helmut Rilling, András Schiff, Christian Zacharias, Lothar Zagrozek and others. Her recitals with pianists like Burkhard Kehring, Igor Levit, Wolfram Rieger, András Schiff, Jan Philip Schulze and others were an important part of Christiane Iven's concert activity and her special passion. She has performed at major music festivals, including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. For her outstanding artistic achievements, she was awarded the Lower Saxony State Prize and named a Baden-Württemberg Kammersängerin.

Born in Hamburg, she studied in her hometown with Judith Beckmann and with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in Berlin. She was a prize-winner at the German Music Competition as well as several international competitions. From 2001 until 2007, Christiane Iven was a professor at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. Since 2013, she has held a professorship for singing at the University of Music and Theatre in Munich, where she has also been vice president since 2021. Iven is a jury member at international singing competitions and gives numerous singing courses, including at the International Music Academy for Soloists (IMAS), at the International Hugo Wolf Academy and at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg.

In addition, Christiane Iven works as a coach and consultant in the fields of music, theater and music education. In June 2023, she makes her debut as a director with a new production of Verdi's "La Traviata" at Theater Dessau.

Prof. Dorin Marc

Dorin Marc completed his studies in his home country of Romania at the Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti with Prof. Ion Cheptea.

In addition to his first engagement at the Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra in Cluj-Napoca (Klausenburg), he was principal double bass in the Orchestra Internazionale d'Italia. From 1992 to 2003 he was principal double bass with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and from 1998 he was also a lecturer at the Nuremberg University of Music. In 2003, Dorin Marc was appointed professor at the Nuremberg University of Music.

Dorin Marc has been awarded numerous prizes both in his home country and internationally, including the "Special Jury Prize" in 1979 and second prize in 1985 at the ARD Music Competition in Munich, third prize in 1979 and first prize in 1981 at the Markneukirchen International Double Bass Competition, the silver medal and the Frédéric Liebstoeckl Prize at the Concours de Genève in 1983 and first prize at the International Society of Bassists Double Bass Competition in Mittenwald in 1991.

Dorin Marc has performed throughout Europe and given numerous master classes. His students have won prizes at international double bass competitions such as the ARD Music Competition in Munich, the Markneukirchen International Instrumental Competition, the Johann Matthias Sperger International Competition and the Leoš Janáček International Competition in Brno. Many of his students have won solo positions in renowned orchestras.

Prof. Boris Kusnezow

Boris Kusnezow is one of the most sought after collaborative pianists of his generation. He performs with eminent instrumentalists and singers worldwide. His performances have taken him to renowned concert venues such as the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, the Kioi-Hall in Tokyo, the Munich Gasteig and the Berlin Philharmonie.
His artistic activities are documented in 12 CDs and numerous radio recordings. The German press (FAZ, Süddeutsche, Fono Forum, among others) have repeatedly praised him as a chamber musician and several of his CDs have been nominated for prizes, including the Opus Klassik and Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Boris Kusnezow is in demand as an official pianist for some of the world's most prestigious instrumental and singing competitions, most recently being invited to the ARD Competition in Munich, the Joseph Joachim Competition in Hannover, the Stuttgart International Violin Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.

Boris Kusnezow was born in Moscow and began his musical education at the traditional Gnessin Academy. He has lived in Germany from the age of eight and completed his musical studies in Hannover with Professor Bernd Goetzke. Thereafter followed first place at the German Music Competition, international awards such as Fellowship of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust and scholarships from the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben and the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes.

In addition to his active performing activities, he is founder of the piano chamber music academy „Chamber Lab" in Montecastelli/ Italy, artistic director of an international music masterclass in Schloss Bückeburg (IMAS) and volunteers for the Loewe Foundation, where he focuses on the promotion of classical music. Teaching has become an important element in Kusnezow's artistic career. In 2020 he was appointed professor for piano chamber music at the University for Music and Theatre „Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig.