Biography

Sonja Kowollik was born in Germany in 2001. She received her first piano lessons at the age of five. Since 2011, she was a young student at the Youth Academy in Münster with Thomas Reckmann and Prof. Michael Keller. Since 2018, she has been studying with Prof. Claudio Martínez Mehner and Prof. Nina Tichman at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. In the academic year 2021/22, she will complete two semesters with Prof. Matti Raekallio at the Sibelius Academy Helsinki. 

Sonja received further artistic impulses from Robert Levin, Dmitri Alexeev, Georg Friedrich Schenck, Andreas Staier, Robert McDonald, Michel Béroff, Josef Anton Scherrer, Manfred Aust, Bernd Goetzke and Daniel Hope, among others. She is also a scholarship holder of the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein and takes part in the intensive weeks and activities of the academy. 

Sonja has won prizes at national and international competitions such as the national competition "Jugend musiziert", the "Beethoven Bonnensis Competition" and the "Schimmel Piano Competition". She has also received special awards from Yamaha Music Europe GmbH, the German Musicians' Association, the Federal Chamber of Pharmacists and several Sparkasse sponsorship awards. In 2022 she was awarded the "International Bacewicz Prize" and in 2021 the "GWK Music Prize". 

Sonja has been invited to the Encuentro de Música y Academia de Santander 2022, where she performed with cellist Miklós Perényi, among others. She also gave recitals at the Eurogio Music Festival 2022. She was also invited to perform at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the BeethovenFest Bonn, as well as in the Cologne Philharmonic, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, the Paulskirche in Frankfurt, the Józef-Elsner-Philharmonie in Oppeln and at Schloss Bellevue. In addition, she played in Japan, Australia, Poland, Italy, Finland, Estonia, India, Spain and Liechtenstein.

Sonja has performed several times as a soloist with orchestras, including the Münster Symphony Orchestra and the Collegium Musicum Instrumentale Münster. She was heard on German and Polish radio and television, including WDR, BR Klassik and NDR Kultur. 

Sonja is an enthusiastic chamber musician and has received awards in a wide variety of ensembles. She was also a junior student in the subject violin. There she is also a federal prizewinner in the “Jugend musiziert” competition and has performed as a soloist with the Münster Mozart Orchestra. She was section leader in the Westphalian Youth Chamber Orchestra in Münster. 

Sonja was supported by the Jürgen Ponto Foundation, the Reinhard Lüttmann Foundation, the Club Soroptimist International Münster Mitte, the Theodor Cordes Foundation, the Richard Wagner Association Bonn e.V. and the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.