Kasper Schonewille was born in Heerlen, the Netherlands, on 27 January 1992 and at the age of 13 he started to play the piano. He studied with Alla Blatow at the Anton Rubinstein Academy in Düsseldorf (Germany) and from 2006 till 2011 he regularly took classes with piano pedagogue Bernd Brackman in Haarlem (the Netherlands). From 2011 until 2015 he has been studying his Bachelor at the Maastricht conservatory with Jeroen Riemsdijk. He recently studied for his Masters at the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf with Prof. Paolo Giacometti, where he graduated with the highest distinction in June 2018.

 

He followed several masterclasses with Wibi Soerjadi, Jan Wijn, Valentina Berman, Polina Leschenko, Alan Weiss, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Joop Celis and others.
 

Besides that, he performed several times in the Spiegelzaal of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam during the live Radio 4 broadcasted “Spiegelzaal”. Kasper also made his debut in the big hall of “De Doelen” in Rotterdam during the Pianodriedaagse of 2011, as a result of winning this competition in 2009. Later on he was invited to play in the Radio 4 live broadcast “Opium op 4” and “Podium”. 

 

Kasper mostly performs as a solo pianist. Besides that he is also very active in chamber music. In 2013 he got the opportunity to perform together with the well-known Amati Ensemble, led by Gil Sharon and later that year he won a 1st prize together with viola player Alexander Mazin at the 11th Concorso Internazionale di Esecuzione Musicale 'Premio Citta' in Padova, Italy. Besides that, he also played as a chamber musician in Denmark for the Dutch ambassador and several times in Romania during the Tiberius Festival. In 2015, Kasper won (as a member of the Etereo Trio) a 1st prize during the Chamber music festival of Maastricht which resulted in a concert trip to Bangkok, Thailand.

Kasper is not only interested in the regular repertoire for piano, but also in the works of unknown composers who, as Kasper describes them, left numerous “forgotten gems”. He does his best to make these “forgotten gems” shine again.

 

From April 2014 until July 2018 Kasper played on a Steinway Model B grand piano (2004) made possible by the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation.