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Cristiano Holtz

Clavecin-Clavicorde

Cristiano Holtz was born in Brazil in 1972. Influenced by J.S. Bach, he began his studies of harpsichord when he was twelve years old, with Pedro Persone. At fifteen he moved to the Netherlands, following an invitation of Jacques Ogg, in order to pursue his musical studies with him, where he stayed for ten years, studying with various teachers such as Meno van Delft.
Since a very young age, his strongest influence has been Gustav Leonhardt, for whom he was exceptionally accepted as his last official student. It was also very important for him to have worked privately with Pierre Hantai, Marco Mencoboni and Miklos Spanyi, who later invited him to record and play concertos and pieces for two harpsichords.
In 1998 he came at the invitation of several Portuguese music schools and Conservatories, such as the Instituto Gregoriano de Lisboa, to work in Portugal as a professor of harpsichord and chamber music.
Cristiano Holtz performs especially as soloist, on both harpsichord and clavichord and occasionally on historical organs in various countries in Europe, Asia, South America and in the United States, playing in several prestigious international festivals.
He has obtained several international awards such as: Eldorado competition (Brazil 1996), Preis der Deutschen SchallplattenKritik (Germany 2006), 5 Stars Goldberg Magazine (Britain, Spain) for his disc devoted to the composer J. Mattheson (Ramée 2006), which was a world premiere. In 2008 he recorded the Inventions and Sinfonies of J.S. Bach, played on the clavichord for Hortus, and in 2011 again for the Label Ramée, a CD devoted to G.F. Händel, which obtained the prestigious ‘Record Geijutsu Award’ from Japan.