Rafael Orth is a German-British pianist from Hamburg. 
He specialises in 20th and 21st century solo piano repertoire, he has made several piano versions of orchestral and chamber works and sometimes he improvises and composes his own music.
In May and June 2024, he gave six performances of his own solo piano arrangement of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony, becoming one of only a small handful of pianists ever to play a solo version of any Mahler symphony.

Next concert:
"Counterpoint". Preludes and Fugues by Bach, Shostakovich and Kapustin
January 19th 2025, 6 pm, Alte Druckerei Ottensen in Hamburg
https://www.alte-druckerei-ottensen.de/events/kontrapunkte/

Solo recital programmes

Mahler 9

Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 9

Counterpoint

Polyphonic music by J.S. Bach, Gustav Mahler, Dmitri Shostakovich, Nikolai Kapustin, György Ligeti and Conlon Nancarrow

New Piano Music

Gustav Friedrichssohn: Die Elegien von Chu
Thomas Adés: Traced Overhead
György Kurtag: Játékok
Nikolai Kapustin: 3 Impromptus

Debussy

Préludes, Études und Images
Sonata for Flute, Viola und Harp

Schubert

Sonata in G Major
Divertissement à la Hongroises

Miniatures

A large and extremely diverse selection of short pieces from more than 400 years of keyboard music 

Silent Music

Federico Mompou: Música Callada

Bartók and Enescu

Béla Bartók:
Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs 
Mikrokosmos

Georges Enescu: 
Piano Sonata No.3
Chamber Symphony 

Videos and recordings

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Georges Enescu: Chamber Symphony, Op. 33 (live 2015)

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Federico Mompou:
Música Callada
(live 2021)

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Franz Schubert:
Divertissement à la Hongroises
(live 2021)

Rafael Orth, raised in an English-German family in rural Lower Saxony, demonstrated an early and deep interest in music and piano playing, alongside several other intellectual and athletic pursuits. But it was only at the age of fifteen that he began taking serious lessons, practiced  and performed intensively while fortunately being spared from music competitions and overly ambitious adults.
From 2002 to 2007, he studied piano at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg im Breisgau and then regularly played solo concerts in Germany, England, and Switzerland. In addition to his traditional repertoire featuring music by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Liszt, he gradually incorporated music from the past century, particularly by composers such as Debussy, Bartok, Enescu, Schoenberg, and some contemporary living composers.
In 2010, he played a few small improvisational concerts before completely giving up performing. Almost by chance, in 2011, he became the musical director of the music theater group at the University of Freiburg, where he was involved in the entire creative and rehearsal process for annual large-scale productions of student musicals.
In 2015, due to family reasons, he moved to Hamburg, but at the same time he co-founded the independent music theater group "Good Company"  in Freiburg with friends. In 2016 and 2018, they presented the European bilingual premieres of the satirical Broadway musicals "Urinetown" and "Yeast Nation - The Triumph of Life" by the New York based writing duo Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann. During this time, Rafael also gained experience as a director, choreographer, and supporting actor-singer on stage. However, their planned third production featuring the legendary American agitprop musical "The Cradle Will Rock" by Marc Blitzstein about unions and political corruption during the depression era, was prevented by the pandemic in 2020.
During this period, Rafael Orth, now a father of two children, began learning new solo piano repertoire after a hiatus of nearly ten years, and since 2021, he has resumed performing concerts. His programs primarily feature his own transcriptions of orchestral and chamber music (Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Enescu, Nancarrow, Schubert, and Beethoven) as well as more recent piano music. Additionally, he is working on several shorter original piano compositions.