Photo by Philippe Stier
JulianEmanuelBecker
Julian Emanuel Becker (*2005 in Hanover) has been gaining recognition since his success as the youngest prizewinner of the British St Albans International Organ Competition in 2023.
In 2024, he also won 1st prize at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig in the organ category as the youngest participant. He also was awarded the ‚prize of the German National Music Competition‘ (DMW) 2025, which has only been awarded three times since 2001.
Additionally, he is a 1st prize winner of the International Organ Competition Wiesbaden, the International Organ Improvisation Competition of the Bach Biennale Weimar, the Grotrian-Steinweg Piano Competition, the national competition "Jugend musiziert," among others.
He is a scholarship holder by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung), and the Jürgen Ponto Foundation.
Julian Emanuel Becker was admitted to the Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media at the age of seven to the Institut zur Früh-Förderung musikalisch Hochbegabter (IFF). After completing his junior studies there, he has been studying since 2023 at the University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" Leipzig with Martin Schmeding/Nicolas Berndt (organ), Thomas Lennartz/Christian Groß (organ improvisation), and Jacques Ammon (piano). He has also gained further inspiration through masterclasses with Igor Levit, Daniel Roth, Bine Bryndorf, Michel Bouvard, and others.
Concert performances have taken him to the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, the Essen Philharmonic, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, and the Beethovenfest Bonn, among others.
In January 2024, his debut CD was released as a duo with clarinetist Lyuta Kobayashi on the Leipzig-based label GENUIN.
As a composer and arranger, he has written commissioned works and transcriptions for renowned soloists and ensembles, including for Igor Levit’s album Encounter, trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts, and the brass ensemble Salaputia Brass.
Franz Liszt BACH performance at the world-famous organ of Dudelange (Luxembourg).
Fantasie für Trompete und Klavier (2019)" played by Tom Oltmann, Trumpet and Julian Emanuel Becker, Piano
Newspaper extracts
"Julian Becker is one of the most important young artists in organ music. Highly gifted, creative and focused" - Nürnberger Nachrichten, 27.06.2022
"The 17-year-old Julian Becker, child prodigy and student of Martin Schmeding (organ) and Elena Levit (piano), swept his audience away with a well-considered programme. (…) His brisk Bach playing brings out the lines with all the impetus, and he approaches the Passacaglia with particular seriousness" - organ 03/2022 about the 71st Music Festival ION Nuremberg
"Julian Becker starts with Bach: Technique and spiritual emotion, elegance and reverence form a symbiosis." - Wiesbadener Kurier, 16.01.2024
"Of astonishing quality and skill proved to be the motet „Holz auf Jesu Schulter" by the only twelve-year-old Hanoverian Julian Becker. (...) A composition that can be a promise for the future." - Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, 15.01.2018