Maximilian Haberstock Biography

Maximilian Haberstock (2004) is an nineteen-year-old pianist, composer and conductor. He is currently obtaining his musical education at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, where his teachers include Prof. Thomas Böckheler (piano) and Prof. Kay Westermann (composition). He is studying conducting with Prof. Georg Christoph Sandmann (Dresden).

Maximilian has been playing piano since the age of six. He has consistently won first prizes in many piano competitions, including "Jugend musiziert" and the Carl Bechstein Competition. As a first prize winner of the German national music competition Bundeswettbewerb 2017, he was invited to perform at the Philharmonic Hall in Munich.

In November 2016, he was chosen by the Lang Lang International Music Foundation as one of the top ten young talents from around the world to participate in a master class with Lang Lang in Warsaw that was broadcast live internationally. In September 2017, Lang Lang and Maximilian performed together, by invitation of Allianz, at the summer event of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.

His performance at Carnegie Hall New York in April 2017 was his first on the international stage, followed by a concert tour of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in Hungary in March 2018.

In Summer 2018, he was accepted as Student-in-Residence in piano at the 25th Verbier Festival, where, besides performing in masterclasses with world-renowned pianists such as Prof. Sergei Babayan and Prof. Michel Béroff, he also gave a solo recital and chamber music performances. In 2019, he was invited back to this prestigious festival as a Junior Conducting Fellow under the mentorship of Maestro Valery Gergiev. Maximilian returned to Verbier in the summer of 2021 as Maestro James Gaffigan’s assistant with the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra.

In December 2019, Maximilian took the stage at Schloss Nymphenburg for the first time as the conductor of his newly founded ensemble the “Arcis Chamber Orchestra”, presenting Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony and D major Piano Concerto with guest pianists from Moscow. Maximilian conducted his orchestra for the second time on November 1st, 2020 at Utopia Hall in Munich, with soloist Tassilo Probst, this time an all Mozart program: Violin Concerto No. 5 and Symphony No. 29. For their third concert in May 2023 Maximilian and his orchestra will perform with the acclaimed cellist Alban Gerhardt in Munich.

Since 2015, Maximilian has also been studying composition at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich under Prof. Kay Westermann. He has won prizes for his compositions and in July 2016 was admitted into the Summer Academy of the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In May 2017, he was the youngest participant ever at the 28th Orchestral Workshop in Halberstadt with his Symphonic Suite Naturgewalten.

In the spring of 2017, Maximilian founded “Young Musicians Live” with his sister Ayla Sophie. YML is a non-profit project in which the siblings are joined by their musician friends to share the joy of classical music by performing for a variety of audiences, including disadvantaged children and the elderly. They are proud to be able to send seventy-five refugee children to school with the money they raised at their last concert.

Maximilian was the youngest speaker at TEDxYouth@München 2019, where he received a standing ovation for his talk “Finding Stories in Classical Music”.

Maximilian is a scholar of the foundation “Young Musicians on World Stages”, created and mentored by Güher & Süher Pekinel, with the financial support of Tüpraş. He is also a recipient of the Carl-Heinz Illies- Grant as well as the Gerd Bucerius-Grant of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.

Awards in Piano, Composition & Conducting

• Assistant to Maestro James Gaffigan at Verbier Festival 2021
• Gerd Bucerius Scholarship of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben
• Accepted into the Pre-College program at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, July 2020, Piano Class of Prof. Thomas Böckheler
• Selected by Güher & Süher Pekinel as a scholar of “Young Musicians on World Stages”
• Carl-Heinz Illies-Scholarship of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben
• Accepted as Student-in-Residence in conducting at the Verbier Festival 2019
• Accepted as Student-in-Residence in piano at the 25th Verbier Festival 2018
• 1st prize, Jugend musiziert 2017 solo piano, regional, federal state, and national level
• Youngest participant in the 28th Orchestral Workshop for Young Composers 2017 (Halberstadt)
• 1st prize, International Piano & Strings Competition 2017 (New York), solo piano
• Accepted for the Lang Lang Masterclass 2016 (Warsaw)
• 2nd prize, Young People’s Composition Competition 2016 University of Music and Performing Arts Munich
• 1st prize, Jugend musiziert 2015 piano four hands with partner Lisa Marie Großerichter, regional and federal state level
• 1st prize, Carl Bechstein Competition 2014 (Berlin) piano four hands with partner Lisa Marie Großerichter plus Special Prize for the best interpretation of a contemporary piece

Masterclasses Piano

• Prof. Mira Marchenko (November 2019) Zakhar Bron School of Music Zurich
• Prof. Boris Petrushansky (February and October 2019) Anton Rubinstein Musikakademie Düsseldorf
• Prof. Tatiana Malinin-Fedkina (October 2018, March 2019) International Malinin-Piano-Center Kassel
• Prof. Sergei Babayan (August 2018) Verbier Festival
• Prof. Michel Béroff (July 2018) Verbier Festival
• Prof. Richard Goode (July 2018) Verbier Festival
• Prof. Boris Petrushansky (July 2017) Imola Piano Academy
• Lang Lang & Allianz Junior Music Camp (November 2016) Chopin Institute und Teatr Polski
• Prof. Andreas Weber (July 2016) Mozarteum, Summer Academy
• Prof. Wolfgang Manz (July 2015) University of Music and Performing Arts Nuremberg

Masterclasses Chamber Music

• Prof. Gábor Takács-Nagy (August 2018) Verbier Festival 
• Prof. András Keller (July 2018) Verbier Festival

Masterclasses Composition

• 28th Orchestral Workshop for Young Composers 2017 (May 2017) Nordharzer Städtebundtheater Halberstadt
• Prof. Georg Friedrich Haas (July 2016) Mozarteum, Summer Academy
• Prof. Jan Müller-Wieland (July 2016) University of Music and Performing Arts Munich

Masterclasses Conducting

• Prof. Johannes Schlaefli (July 2022) Allegra Festival Orchestra, Sofia, Bulgaria
• Michel Tabachnik (March 2022) Leipzig Symphony Orchestra
• Prof. Rüdiger Bohn (March 2022) Master Orchestra, Brescia Italy
• Prof. Rüdiger Bohn (January 2022) Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra
• James Gaffigan (July 2019) Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra
• Prof. Marco Boni (July 2017) Imola Piano Academy