Christoph Sietzen has been praised by the media as an outstanding talent – a refreshingly natural musician noted for his technical mastery and powerful stage presence. He gave his debut at the Salzburg Festival at the age of 12 and was a prizewinner at the prestigious ARD International Music Competition in 2014. In 2018, he was awarded the ICMA (International Classical Music Awards) Young Artist Award and the European Concert Hall Organisation
(ECHO) named him a Rising Star for the 2017/18 season. Furthermore, Christoph received an OPUS KLASSIK for Newcomer of the Year 2019.
Christoph regularly performs at prestigious venues such as Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Salzburg's Great Festival Hall and Mozarteum, Romanian Atheneum in Bucharest, Philharmonie Luxembourg, London's Barbican Centre, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Berlin's Konzerthaus, Cologne's Philharmonie, Müpa Budapest, Gulbenkian Foundation Lisbon, Palau de la Música Barcelona, Stockholm Konserthuset, Bozar Brussels, Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Suntory Hall in Tokyo as well as at festivals like Salzburg or Grafenegg.
His orchestral collaborations include the Bavarian, Austrian and Polish Radio Symphony Orchestras, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg as well as the Academy of Ancient Music with conductors like Ilan Volkov, Marin Alsop, Howard Griffiths, Yutaka Sado, Frank Strobel, Alexander Liebreich or Cristian Mandeal. As an active chamber musician he works with musicians like Tabea Zimmermann, Clemens Hagen, Peter Sadlo, Christian Schmitt, Maurice Steger, Maximilian Hornung, the multi-instrumentalist Hubert von Goisern as well as actors like Dörte Lyssewski and Karl Markovics.
Committed to expanding the existing percussion repertoire, Christoph’s projects include new works by Georg Friedrich Haas, Andrea Tarrodi, Helmut Schmidinger, Emmanuel Séjourné, Ivan Boumanns, Jakob Gruchmann, Alexander Mullenbach, Christoph Ehrenfellner, Ingo Ingensand und Alexander Wagendristel as well as Stewart Copeland (formerly of the rock band “The Police”), all of whom have composed for him.
Furthermore he is member of the marimba ensemble „The Wave Quartet“, founded by Bogdan Bacanu in 2008 and initiated the percussion ensemble „Motus Percussion“.
Christoph’s 2017 solo album “Attraction” received the Pizzicato Supersonic Award, describing the recording as “a stupendous solo performance in every respect”. His first concerto recording featuring concerti by Avner Dorman and Einojuhani Rautaavara was followed by his most recent album „Silence", released by Sony Classical in September 2019 covering solo repertoire as well as collaborations with Clemens Hagen, Bogdan Bacanu and the Academy of Ancient Music. Christoph also has a rich discography with The Wave Quartet.
A citizen of Luxembourg, Christoph was born in Salzburg in 1992. He started learning percussion at the age of six, double bass at the age of eight and later studied at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz with Bogdan Bacanu (Marimba) and Leonhard Schmidinger (percussion) as well as with Josef Gumpinger. He also followed his passion for the harpsichord to particularly focus on Baroque repertoire. From 2014-2019 he has held a teaching position at Vienna’s University for Music and the Performing Arts and from 2020 at his Alma Mater.
Christoph Sietzen performs on Adams Musical Instruments.