Sebastian Heindl

OrganNominated by Konzerthaus Dortmund Festspielhaus Baden-Baden Season 2023-2024

New bespoke work: Orck by Moritz Eggert

co-commissioned by Konzerthaus Dortmund, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO)

 

Photo © Kilian Homburg

Over the past years Sebastian Heindl attracted international attention by earning a number of prizes in organ competitions all around the globe. In 2019 he won the Longwood Gardens Organ Competition (USA), which is considered to be one of the most prestigious organ competitions worldwide.

He received his fundamental musical education as a chorister in Leipzig‘s famous St. Thomas Boys Choir, where Johann Sebastian Bach was once the director of music. After that Heindl continued his studies in Church Music at Leipzig conservatory with Prof. Martin Schmeding.

Thanks to his virtuoso interpretations and his adventurous charisma he became a celebrated performer on the worlds leading concert stages such as the Philharmonie Berlin. Concert tours led him to France, Swizerland, Austria, Hungary, UK, Ireland, Russia, USA, Canada. Besides that he frequently performs on many precious historical instruments in Germany.

His debut CD recorded at age 17 was lauded enthusiastically by the press. During the COVID-19 pandemic he was featured in several concert film productions by the Bachfest Leipzig and in a much appreciated concert with the Berlin Phil Brass Ensemble for the Digital Concert Hall. Thanks to his frequent activity on social media and the internet, especially YouTube, Heindl encouraged thousands of people to fall in love with organ music.

Sebastian Heindl also appears as improviser and composer. His highly individual own musical language consists of elements of modern Jazz music and classical formal structures.

In 2022 he was appointed the head of church music at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Memorial-Church Berlin – a church that represents like no other one the turbulent history of Germany in the last two centuries.