CHRISTIAN BENNING -
PERCUSSIONIST
As a “phenomenon“ (Sueddeutsche Zeitung), as a “rhythmic genius“ (ZEIT) and as “replete with elegant
perfection“ (Muenchner Merkur), the multi percussionist Christian Benning (*1995) and his recent performances had been commended in many ways. The career of the versatile solo and ensemble artist still is in its early stages though.
When he was three years old he received his first lessons on the drums, at the age of eight on the piano.
In 2005 he joined the Bayerische Philharmonie as principal timpanist, passing the children’s and the youth orchestra, and additionally making his prime experiences as percussion soloist with symphony orchestra.
At the age of 13, Christian Benning was enrolled as the youngest pre-college student for percussion at the “University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich”, where he had been studying with Prof. Adel Shalaby for ten semesters until his high school diploma in 2014. Additional drumset lessons at the modern drum school “Drums” since 2003, as well as international academies and masterclasses with Martin Grubinger, Evelyn Glennie, Jost Nickel, Lang Lang, Leon Fleisher, Sir Andras Schiff a.o. complement his education.
Beneath multiple successes in various music competitions, e.g. the federal first prize with highest score at Jugend Musiziert in 2010 and 2013 or his third prize at the international Marimba Festiva Competition 2010 in Nuremberg, lots of solo performances and concerts took place at prestigious venues, as for instance in the German national parliament and at the Allianz-Forum for Yoko Ono in Berlin, at the Philharmonic Hall of Munich, at the New Castle of Stuttgart, at the soccer stadium BayArena in Leverkusen, at the Palace of Justice in Vienna (Austria), at the festival Les Musicales d’Orient in the French Champagne, at the Culture Center of Port Louis (Mauritius), or in the United States of America at The Abbey in San Diego (CA) and at Griswold Hall in Baltimore (MD).
He moreover worked under the conducts of
Marin Alsop (ORF) or Kent Nagano at the
AUDI Summer Concerts in 2015 and performed on numerous international stages (Luxembourg, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Republic of Korea, Egypt, Oman a.o.) with renowned groups and orchestras such as the Hugo Strasser Bigband, Augsburg Philharmonic, Ludwigsburg Festival Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Wuerttemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn or the Mauritius State Opera.
In 2014, Simone Rubino, Richard Putz, Sergey Mikhaylenko and Christian Benning founded the Esegesi Percussion Quartet. After their ensemble debut at Prinzregententheater in Munich in 2015, they have been invited for concerts at well-known festivals like Rheingau Musikfestival, Heidelberger Frühling or La Folle Journée (France) and in 2016 they produced their debut CD with the label Genuin in Cologne at Deutschlandfunk.
Christian Benning performs all around the globe as soloist, just recently in orders of Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk (ZKM Karlsruhe) or Bayerischer Rundfunk (Munich Philharmonic Hall) combined with live streams and radio broadcasts, as well as with symphony orchestras for instance at Hercules Hall in Munich or at Laeiszhalle in Hamburg („A rising star in the sky of percussion“ - Hamburg Magazin).
Own percussion concerts and performances constitute the major part of his artistic activities and are proceeded as recitals as well as with his ensemble Christian Benning Percussion Group (originally founded as Percussion No1 in 2014) in various formations from trio to quintet, recently at festivals and concert series such as UniCredit Festival of the Bavarian State Opera, Young Artist Festival in Bayreuth, Days of Music in Seefeld (Tyrol/Austria), Kulturring in Hildesheim, Brunnenhof OpenAir Series of the Munich Royal Residence or at Fronhof Concerts in Augsburg when “their musical precision has only been topped by their glaring joy on stage” (Augsburger Allgemeine).
In addition to his solo debuts at Glocke in Bremen, at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, at Beethoven House in Bonn, at Musikverein in Graz (Austria) and also at the United Nations in New York City (USA) in 2020, he will soon be invited for his first solo performances in Italy, Spain, Russia, Australia and China.
Meanwhile Benning also engages as composer and producer, as in 2020 he premiered and recorded two solo works in cooperation with Deutschlandfunk on behalf of the Beethoven Congress and the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Trier. Beyond his classic musical work he has also been collaborating with Dirk Nowitzki’s mentor Holger Geschwindner in a long-termed interdisciplinary project developing new and innovative methods for professional basketball training through implementing specific rhythmic elements. In the near future he is going to write a music and sport scientific dissertation about it. Furthermore he invented a worldwide unique hybrid percussion setup (CreativeBeats) - planned to be firstly presented in Dallas (TX/USA) in the near future.
In 2013 he was admitted by Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, since 2014 he has been scholarship holder of the German Scholarship Foundation. Since 2015 Benning has been holding the charge as youth counselor of Europe’s percussion association Percussion Creativ.
In 2014 he received the Tassilo Culture Prize of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and in 2016 he was awarded with the Arts and Culture Prize of the city of Pasing.
Since 2019 he is official artist of Meinl Cymbals, Meinl Percussion, Meinl Stick&Brush, Studio49 Royal Percussion, AlternateMode and SchlagZu. For his performances he is additionally appareled by vanLaack and Etnia.
Benning had been studying at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich with his mentor Prof. Dr. Peter Sadlo (†2016). Afterwards he has been continuing his studies with Prof. Arnold Riedhammer and Prof. Alexej Gerassimez, absolving his Bachelor’s degree with top grades in 2019.
In 2017, he absolved a semester abroad in the USA studying with Prof. Robert van Sice at the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (MD) and at the Yale School of Music in New Haven (CT), enabled by several scholarships of the German Scholarship Foundation and the Orlandus Lassus Foundation.