Biography
"My very first encounter with the piano took place when I was seven years old. A wondrous universe opened up in front of me, all about the piano was fascinating and sensual: it sounded good, it smelled good, it felt good !"
She received her first piano lessen as well at the age of seven years by Marianne Haupt in Siegen/Germany.
An exceptional talent became quite soon evident, when Marie-Luise Hinrichs was permitted to substitute already at the age of only fourteen years the pianist Stefan Askenase at rehearsals with orchestra and only shortly after that made very successfully her own public debut with that same Mozart piano concert, c - major KV 467. Further more studies with Hubert Juhre in Essen, Yara Bernette at the conservatory of music Hamburg, Pavel Gililov at the conservatory of music Cologne and with Renate Kretschmar-Fischer in Detmold followed. Musically she was also influenced by her partner and colleague Christian Zacharias. They made music together with two pianos on international podiums.
In those years she refined that luminous, extremely sensitive and warm piano sound, which has remained till today one of her distinctive marks.
"It is a great present to be able to express myself through music ", so she once has mentioned.
Soon after Marie-Luise advanced to become a renowned and internationally acclaimed pianist.
Not only was the german artist greeted with ovations in the concert halls all over the world, but furthermore she became famous with her interpretations and CDs at the labels EMI and CPO.
Through her for example, the sonatas of Antonio Soler - till then relatively unknown - were introduced to a wider audience.
Her outstanding Mozart CD, which she recorded together with Christian Zacharias,which was published by EMI Classics, was nominated in 1998 for the Classical Cannes Award.
The "piano chants " - proper piano arrangements of the compositions of the medieval saint Hildegard von Bingen caused a sensation in the national and international music world, as Marie-Luise Hinrichs had placed there new pianistic accents in a till then completely unknown direction.
This pioneer work can be listened to on the CD "VOCATION", which in 2011 kept staying for a long time in the Classic charts.
In 2008 arose a documentary film portrait about the development of this composition project.
Since then the artist is spending increasingly more time with COMPOSITION.
"It is the joy about the creative process, which is so great ", she says.
Not only nenowned newspapers as LE FIGARO or the FAZ, but also magazines like FONO FORUM and many more praise over and over again her stylistic confidence, her extraordinary sensitivity as well as her well-balanced sound while playing.
Besides the classical, traditional repertoire, the artist dedicates herself intensively to the oriental music, to the ancient music, as well as to the music of the 20th. century.
