meet the artist Christian Benning

Christian Benning Biography

As a “phenomenon“ (Süddeutsche Zeitung), as a “rhythmic genius“ (ZEIT) and as “replete with elegant perfection“ (Münchner Merkur), the multi percussionist Christian Felix Benning (*1995) and his recent performances had been commended in many ways. The career of the versatile solo and ensemble artist still is in its early stages though.

When he was three years old he received his first lessons on the drums, at the age of eight on the piano.

In 2005 he joined the Bayerische Philharmonie as principal timpanist, passing the children’s and the youth orchestra, and additionally making his prime experiences as percussion soloist with symphony orchestra.

At the age of 13, Christian Benning enrolled as the youngest ever pre-college student for percussion at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich, where he had been studying with Prof. Adel Shalaby for ten semesters until his high school diploma in 2014\. Additional drumset lessons at the modern drum school Drums since 2003, as well as international academies and masterclasses with Martin Grubinger, Evelyn Glennie, Lang Lang, Leon Fleisher, Sir Andras Schiff a.o. complement his education.

Beneath multiple successes in various music competitions, e.g. the federal first prize with highest score at  
Jugend Musiziert in 2010 and 2013 or his third prize at the international Marimba Festiva Competition in 2010 in Nuremberg, lots of solo performances and concerts took place at prestigious venues, as for instance in the German national parliament and at the Allianz-Forum for Yoko Ono in Berlin, at the Philharmonic Hall of Munich, at the New Castle of Stuttgart, at the soccer stadium BayArena in Leverkusen, at the Justizpalast in Vienna (Austria), at the festival Les Musicales d’Orient in the French Champagne, at the Culture Center of Port Louis (Mauritius), or at The Abbey in San Diego (CA/USA) and at Griswold Hall in Baltimore (MD/USA). He moreover worked under the conducts of  
Marin Alsop (ORF) and Kent Nagano at the AUDI Summer Concerts in 2015 and performed on numerous international stages (Luxembourg, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Poland, Republic of Korea, Egypt, Oman a.o.) with renowned groups and orchestras such as the Hugo Strasser Bigband, Augsburg Philharmonic, Carl Orff Festival Orchestra,  
Ludwigsburg Castle Festival Orchestra, Munich Chamber Orchestra, or the Mauritius State Opera.

In 2014, Simone Rubino, Richard Putz, Sergey Mikhaylenko and Christian Benning founded the  
Esegesi Percussion Quartet. After their ensemble debut at Prinzregententheater in Munich in 2015, they have been invited for concerts at well-known festivals like Rheingau Musikfestival, Heidelberger Frühling or La Folle Journée and in 2016 they produced their debut CD with the label Genuin in Cologne.

Christian Benning globally performs as soloist, just recently in orders of Südwestdeutscher Rundfunk (ZKM Karlsruhe, 2017) and of Bayerischer Rundfunk (Munich Philharmonic Hall, 2018) combined with internet live streams and radio broadcasts, as well as with symphony orchestras for instance at Hercules Hall in Munich (2016) or at Laeiszhalle in Hamburg (2017).

His own percussion concerts are proceeded as recitals, but also with his own ensemble  
Christian Benning Percussion Group (originally founded as Percussion No. 1 in 2014) in various formations from trio to quintet. They have already been performing at the UniCredit Festival Night of the Bavarian State Opera or at Fronhof in Augsburg when “their musical precision has only been topped by their glaring joy on stage” (Augsburger Allgemeine).

In addition to his solo debuts at Glocke in Bremen, at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, at Musikverein in Graz (Austria), at Beethoven House in Bonn and also at the United Nations in New York City (USA), for 2020 he his also invited for his first solo performances at Festspielhaus of Bayreuth, in Italy, Russia and China - on hold though at the moment due to the international COVID-19 health regulations and restrictions.

Meanwhile Benning also engages in composing and producing, as in 2020 he premiered and recorded two solo works in cooperation with Deutschlandfunk on behalf of the Beethoven Congress and the  
Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Trier.

Beyond his classic musical work, since 2017 he has also been collaborating with Dirk Nowitzki’s mentor  
Holger Geschwindner in a long-termed interdisciplinary project developing new and innovative methods for  
professional basketball training through implementing specific rhythmic elements. In the near future he is going to write a music and sport scientific dissertation about it.

Furthermore he invented the worldwide unique hybrid percussion setup CreativeBeats - planned to be firstly presented in Dallas (Texas/USA) at the end of 2020.

In 2013 he was admitted by Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, since 2014 he has been a scholarship holder of the  
German Scholarship Foundation. Since 2015 Benning has been holding the charge as youth counselor of Europe’s percussion society Percussion Creativ. In 2014 he received the Tassilo Culture Prize of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and in 2016 he was awarded with the Arts and Culture Prize of the city of Pasing. Since 2019 he is official artist of  
Studio49 Royal Percussion and endorser of Meinl Cymbals & Percussion. For his performances he is appareled by vanLaack and Etnia.

Benning had been studying at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich with his mentor  
Prof. Dr. Peter Sadlo (†2016). Afterwards he has been continuing his studies with Prof. Arnold Riedhammer and  
Prof. Alexej Gerassimez, absolving his Bachelor’s degree with top grades in 2019.  
In 2017, he absolved a semester abroad studying with Prof. Robert van Sice at the  
Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (MD) and at the Yale School of Music in New Haven (CT/USA), enabled by a full scholarship of the German Scholarship Foundation and the Orlandus Lassus Foundation.

Country: Germany

Band: Christian Benning Percussion