Christoph Eder
Classical music has been in my life for as long as I can remember. The first introduction came through my father's piano playing, when after a long day at work he would sit down at the keyboard to let go of stress and re-center himself. Humming along softly he'd play pieces by Schubert and Brahms and to me one thing was instinctively clear in these moments: this sphere was going to be of great significance for me!
It didn't take long until I was drawn to the keyboard myself - at seven years old I demanded to start piano lessons. In the following years my father awakened and nourished my interest in old recordings by great pianists of the 20th century. I spent a good deal of my early adolescence diving into the canonic piano repertoire and submerging myself in the scratchy soundscapes of figures like Artur Schnabel, Clifford Curzon and Sviatoslav Richter. Lang Lang's and Yundi Li's careers were just gaining international traction and they became my version of pop idols.
Over the years my musical interest shifted from the limited world of the piano to the infinite cosmos of the orchestra. Soon my ears were devouring heavy German diet, ranging from Brahms and Bruckner to Mahler and onward into the 20th century. The flame got fully ignited at the discovery of Richard Wagner, whose seemingly endless musical dramas I ate up like thick novels, reading lengthy essays about the complex webs of Leitmotivs as a side dish. Wagner's music was also my first conscious encounter with the miracles that the human voice can produce.
My ever growing enthusiasm for orchestral music proved quite consequential: After Highschool was finished my goal was to turn my passion for music into a job by becoming a conductor. In September 2012 I enrolled in a bachelor program in orchestral conducting at the conservatoire in Leipzig in the class of professor Ulrich Windfuhr. But things soon took an abrupt turn, when after only a short while I had to confront the fact that I was not able to withstand the immense outer and inner pressures of this unique job. I choose my own mental health and dropped out after only one semester - at the time an achingly difficult choice of wich I am all the more proud today.
My story
On winding roads
After the shipwreck in Leipzig I needed a bit of time to regroup. At that moment a move back to Hamburg onto native soil presented itself as imperative. Back in my hometown I spent the next two two years killing time working as a waiter and halfheartedly trying to study law - the kind of thing one does when they really have no clue of their next move.
The first step towards a new professional future was me changing course by enrolling for musicology at Hamburg university the following year - something that didn't exactly feel all that right but also not terribly wrong either. After I had picked up studying I felt the need to once again leave my hometown and Berlin seemed just like the place to be. In 2015 I packed up my things and headed off to the city that had already shaped countless careers and personalities - and I should be no exception. Indeed the move to Berlin opened up an entirely new path to musicianship for me: ensemble singing.
During my second Berlin year I happened to befriend people from an ambitious youth choir - an event that has probably been the happiest accident of my life. Singing among a young group of enthusiastic music lovers truly felt like a liberation: singing together with others and without any of the stress I had always experienced at the keyboard set me free from the performance pressure of earlier days and for the first time I was able to experience the unclouded joy of just making music. The youth choir's vocal coach soon became my first teacher as I was eager to expand the possibilities of my voice.
This path was heavily reaffirmed when I got accepted into the German National Youth Choir in 2018 and in working with this excellent ensemble got acquainted to work on a professional level. Having made it into this nationally selected circle of highly talented peers with a comparatively short run-up made me think that this whole thing might actually become more than just a wonderful hobby. Without me even noticing a new door had started to open up and a novel perspective for life as a professional musician had slowly been building. But life set up one more, absolutely unpredictable roadblock: the Corona Pandemic.
Finally - my new life as a singer!
I had just finished my Bacherlor's degree in musicology and was making first steps towards an existence as a professional singer when the pandemic completely shut down all cultural life at the beginning of 2020. All of a sudden the idea of living as a freelance artist seemed absolutely impossible - but once again my path was being directed in unexpected and fortunate ways. A spontaneous application in my hometown of Hamburg proved successful and in late summer of 2020 I joined the management team of Ensemble Resonanz - a formidable string orchestra whom I had long been admiring for their unique blend of artistic courage, curiousness and laid-back excellence. Looking back one would probably just call that serendipity.
Working among Ensemble Resonanz's dedicated management team allowed me to build up all kinds of new skills over the next two years and train myself in self-organization and creative thinking. After the free-floating existence at university the stability of an employee's life was just what I needed and helped me to further sharpen my focus. But even with a fantastic job at an amazing employer I soon started to realize, that a life without singing seemed pretty empty.
In fall of 2021 I started to reignite the relationship with my voice by picking up lessons with professor Jörn Dopfer in Hamburg, who gave vital impulses to elevate my vocal technique to a new level. A year later I had already resumed a level of artistic activity that called for a switch of my management job to a part-time contract. Soon enough though this step proved to be not big enough: A couple of larger gigs as a soloist really stimulated my wish to finally put all eggs in one basket and dedicate myself to singing with everything I had.
This switch into freelance-life as a singer and author was accompanied by moving back to my chosen hometown Berlin. Ever since this decision I finally feel that I have arrived in the life I want to live! Being a singer, expressing myself through amazing music, uniting body, mind and soul and in the process experiencing the grace of being an enrichment to others: That is more than I ever dreamed any job could be. Looking back I can now say that every detour I have taken on my winding path has allowed me to learn and grow and made me into the person and artist I am today!