Joseph Moog

Born in 1987 in Ludwigshafen, Joseph Moog started sitting down regularly at the piano when he was four. At the age of ten he was accepted as a young student at the Hochschule für Musik in Karlsruhe, before going on to study in Würzburg and Hannover. Moog has a fine sense for combining repertoire. He places well-loved pieces alongside rare niche findings, searching for new insight and thereby throwing a different light on familiar music – for instance, when he places shining gems of the Late Baroque period such as Domenico Scarlatti’s brief sonatas alongside piano transcriptions and arrangements from the 19th century, or when, instead of pairing the Grieg Piano Concerto with the Schumann Concerto, he chooses to feature Moritz Moszkowski instead: a true discovery. Moog has twice won the International Classical Music Award (ICMA); in 2009 he was selected as a Young Steinway Artist. He has garnered further international prizes such as the 2015 Gramophone Classical Music Award as Young Artist of the Year, followed by a 2016 Grammy nomination. Moog is featured in several instances on CDs of the Edition Ruhr Piano Festival: for instance, on Vol. 35 with Max Reger’s Telemann Variations. Volume 32 includes an entire CD performed by Moog, with works by Liszt, Debussy, and others. He guested at the Ruhr Piano Festival for the 5th time in 2017.