VERENA BOERSCH

Verena Boersch grew up in Neustadt/Weinstrasse in the South-West of Germany where she started having piano lessons at the age of five. In 1995 she completed her undergraduate studies at the Musikhochschule Detmold with the renowned Russian pianist Anatol Ugorski and received her Performing and Teaching Degree with distinction.  Supported by a Rotary-Scholarship she then went on to study as a postgraduate with Bernard Roberts at the Royal College of Music, London, where she completed both the Performer’s Diploma and the Master of Music (Advanced Performance Pathway).  As a scholarship recipient of the German Academic Exchange Service she studied on the Advanced Studies course with Andrew Ball at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for a further year. It was there, that she met Nelly Ben-Or, who is the leading teacher worldwide of piano playing in connection with the Alexander Technique. Since 1997 Verena Börsch has repeatedly and continuously worked with Nelly Ben-Or and employs the concepts of the Alexander Technique in her playing as well as her teaching.

Verena Boersch received further scholarships by the Leverhulme Trust, by the Karl-Klingler-Stiftung for chamber music courses with Eberhard Feltz and by the Canadian Banff Centre for the Arts for a masterclass with György Sebök.  Next to being a soloist and chamber musician she has also always been an active song accompanist. In 1996 she was invited by Roger Vignoles, with whom she had studied extensively at the Royal College of Music, to be one of the official accompanists at the International Music Festival of Verbier.  In 1997 Verena Boersch won the first prize of the Watford Music Festival Concerto Competition with her interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C-major Op 15. A year later she was awarded the second prize at the North London Music Festival.

Since 2000 Verena Boersch has lived and worked as a soloist, chamber musician, song accompanist and piano pedagogue in Southern Germany.  In 2007/8 she performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major Op. 58 in Neustadt and Lincoln. Together with the Chamber Orchestra of South-Palatinate she performed Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto in d-minor Op. 40 in 2009, followed by Schumann’s Piano Concerto in a minor Op. 54 in 2010, and in 2013 they gave the first performance of Fanny Hensel-Mendelssohn’s Das Jahr in an arrangement for piano and orchestra by Martin Torp.  In 2010 she was also the soloist in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy Op. 80, and in 2011 she performed Schumann’s Piano Concerto Op. 54 with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen under conductor Ola Rudner.

Musical Opinion wrote about Verena Boersch’s  London debut recital in St John’s Smith Square:“...an artist of genuine musicianship....intelligent, expressive and compelling.“

Verena Boersch’s interpretation of Beethoven’s late piano sonatas gained special recognition: „....music provides higher enlightenment than all philosophy, said Beethoven.  Who has heard Verena Börsch play, is inclined to believe that“ (Die Rheinpfalz).