About Leonie Klein

Leonie Klein was born in Wittlich, Germany, in 1993. She received her first percussion instruction in 1999 and won many state and national competitions in the “Jugend Musiziert” program before enrolling in 2011 as a junior student at the University of Music Karlsruhe, where she studied percussion with Prof. Isao Nakamura, Jochen Brenner, and Thomas Höfs, receiving a Master’s degree with distinction in 2019. In Karlsruhe, she also received a Master’s degree in Music Journalism for Broadcasting and Multimedia and completed a companion course of study in Applied Cultural Studies. She is currently writing a dissertation on the subject of New Music for solo percussion.
Leonie Klein is dedicated to the performance of New Music. She has ap peared as a percussionist in the New Music festivals “ZeitGenuss” in Karlsruhe, “New Counter points” in Düsseldorf, “KNM Contemporaries” in Berlin, Deutsch land funk’s “Forum neuer Musik” in Cologne, “SWRlive!” in Mainz, the ARD “Hörspiel Festival”, and the “Rising Stars” festival at the music academies in Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and Freiburg. Her musical development was significantly influenced by her work with Helmut Lachen mann, Vinko Globokar, Nicolaus A. Huber, Dieter Schnebel, and Peter Eötvös – whose percussion concerto Speaking Drums she performed under his direction.
In addition to her concert career, Leonie Klein is a committed advocate of contemporary music. In 2016, together with Prof. Dr. Ulrich Mosch, she presented a lecture in the series “Rearview Mirror – Seven Works from Seven Decades” at the Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, focusing on Helmut Lachen mann’s solo percussion work Intérieur I. She has produced a number of radio broadcasts devoted to the theme of percussion music. She also organized, in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Rudolf Frisius, a concert discussion about contemporary solo percussion works. This project led to the development of teaching material on Karlheinz Stock hausen’s Zyklus for general instruction in schools (published by the Raabe-Verlag in Stuttgart).
Leonie Klein has received scholarships from the Zukunftsinitiative Rhein land-Pfalz, the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, the Würzburg Mozart Festival’s MozartLabor, the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, and Zonta Inter national. For her outstanding engagement in the service of contemporary music, she received a support 27prize from Friends of the Karlsruhe University of Music. Her debut album Gathering Thunders (released by WERGO in 2018) was nominated for the Opus Klassik prize, and in 2020, she was awarded the Dwight and Ursula Mamlok Prize for soloists making a significant contribution to the performance of contemporary music. Leonie Klein is a Yamaha Artist.
www.leonie-klein.net