Susanne Achilles

Susanne Achilles was born in Bochum and studied piano at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen with Ludger Maxsein; after graduating with distinction she continued her training in Hamburg with Yara Bernette and deepened theory and analysis with György Ligeti and song accompaniment with Aribert Reimann. Besides the classical repertoire she has, since the beginning of her international concert career, devoted herself in particular to new music, chamber music and works with electronics or multimedia components. In Europe, North America and Asia she has given the first performances of more than 150 works. In 1992 she founded the Wolpe-Trio with Lesley Olson and Scott Roller; for many years she has taught piano at the Folkwang Universität der Künste and gives master classes in China regularly. Four albums connect her with Cybele, and the Wolpe-Trio stands at the centre of two of them: Harmonies and Counterpoints between Germany and America (1999) with works by Stefan Wolpe, Erik Lund, Dietrich Hahne, Scott Roller and Manfred Stahnke, and Johannes Fritsch’s 3 Trios (2006) from the Feedback Studio Köln series, where the trio plays the first of the three pieces. To these are added Portrait Wolfgang Hufschmidt (1995) and Fritsch’s Early Chamber Music (2011).