Less is more!

Some of my most inspiring projects were projects where I could commission pieces around a particular instrumentation and musical path I was on. These included the projects Handscapes: the collection of newly composed works by female composers for piano and multimedia, 'Piano, Toy Piano, Kalimba & Gadgets,' my first programme with the toy piano, 'Kalimba!', the first programme for contemporary music with the kalimba as a solo instrument and 'Mantra AfterMaths', a collaboration with the pianist Bernhard Fograscher, in which we commissioned works for two pianos inspired by Karlheinz Stockhausen's masterpiece 'Mantra'. Since 2014, I have been organising the Non-Piano/Toy Piano Weekend, a two-day festival in Hamburg that focuses on unusual piano and toy piano repertoire. This was another wonderful opportunity to receive newly written commissions.

Studies
1992 Bachelor of Arts in Music, University of California at Berkeley (USA)

1997 Masters of Fine Arts in Music Performance and Literature, Mills College, California

1991-1992 Piano courses at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, Centre Acanthes Avignon, International Bartók Seminar and Festival, Szombathely and Parma, Italy

1992-1998 Important teachers: Deno Gianopoulos, James Avery, Bernhard Wambach

1997 moved to Germany

2002 Tour South America, project 'Handscapes' a new piano programme for piano and multimedia by various female composers

2002 moved to Hamburg

2003 (until now) Head of music at GEDOK-Hamburg

2003- 2013 Founded the Ensemble Effusions and the piano duo Jennifer Hymer/Bernhard Fograscher with numerous performances, especially the Stockhausen key work 'Mantra' with the project 'Mantra Aftermaths', which commissioned new works around 'Mantra'

2006 Solo CD: Ceci n'pas un piano for piano, kalimba and toy piano with works by Annie Gosfield, Annea Lockwood, Tan Dun, Manfred Stahnke, Sascha Lino Lemke

2007 Project 'Kalimba!' - which presented the kalimba as a solo instrument for the first time in contemporary music with a full-length programme

2014 Foundation of Non-Piano/Toy Piano Weekend in Hamburg. The festival will take place for the ninth time in 2022

2014-now Numerous performances in festivals and concert series in Germany, Taiwan, New York, Paris, Odessa, Mongolia, Austria, etc.

3 April 2022 Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg
Roaring 20's - then and now!

13-14 January 2022 Festival Non-Piano/Toy Piano Weekend, resonanzraum, Hamburg

8.12.2021 'Forgotten Grades', Logenhaus, Goethe-Saal, Hamburg
Exactly 90 years later to the day in the same place: 9 female composers - a concert - 1931 and life afterwards

13.11.2021 Soundbridge Virtual Festival Malasia: Music video Play Addict by Lukas Ligeti for Toy Piano & Samples was presented.

12.10.2021 Unheard Music, BKA Berlin Ladies Night with works by Ursula Mamlok, Manuel Rodriguez-Valenzuela, Sascha Lemke, Lina Tonia with Pamela Coats- clarinet, Mari Vilusalek - viola and Marica Lemke-Kern- soprano.

8.2021 CD recording Steffen Wolf Portrait

1-15.8.2021 Summer Nights in the Koppel 66 performances and the organisation of a series of 6 concerts in a historic art house with a focus on female composers

29.5.2021 Non-Places: Portrait Concert Ruta Paidere
Tonali Saal-Hamburg

13.2021 Non-Piano/Toy Piano Weekend (resonanzraum, Hamburg: Streamed.)

24.11.2021 Münster Festival Klangzeit*Werkstatt Hands on!
Works by Benjamin Scheuer, Sascha Lino Lemke, Moritz Eggert, Francesco Filidei, Lachenmann

25.2. 2021 Composers Now Presents: Lukas Ligeti
featured: Play Addict for toy piano and electronics