About – Marion von Tilzer

Nederlandse Biografie

Award-winning composer/pianist Marion von Tilzer is an intriguing musician, in particular, due to her talent for merging completely different styles and art genres in a surprising and original way. Her synthesis of Indian classical music with contemporary western music has led to collaborations with musicians, choreographers and filmmakers from all over the world, as a composer and performer with her own groups. Her projects have been labeled stunning, fascinating and accessible at the same time.

Her current project is a series of cross-cultural interdisciplinary art projects is called ‘Meetings with Remarkable Women – music inspired by women’s lives’. The second project of the series ‘Into Eternity’ was presented as a concert and album in Amsterdam in the spring of 2023. It is a tribute to Vilma Grunwald and is based on Vilma’s letter written moments before her death in Auschwitz. Her album with cellist/vocalist Maya Fridman ‘Ten Songs of Change’ with Marion’s music and poetry from the Tang Dynasty inspired by the I Ching, the book of Changes. With this project they have an ongoing tour ‘Ten Songs of Change in Sacred Spaces” which started off in July 2021 in The Netherlands.

In 2012 she won the first prize of the Donemus Composition Competition. Her piece “Die Verlassene Stadt” an orchestral work was commissioned by the VU kamerorkest and is dedicated to the victims of the Chernobyl disaster.In 2015 the album Secret Keymasters was released on Challenge Records together with fellow pianists Michael Gees & Frans Ehlhart with original compositions of all three musicians. Marion’s CD with her music written to the fairy tale ‘Das Verschenkte Weinen’ by W. Heiduczek was released by Buchfunk, as an Audiobook during the Leipzig Bookfare in March 2018.

Marion was commissioned to write two pieces for the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the Westdeutsche Rundfunk in Cologne, Germany. One of pieces was nominated for the Theodore Front Prize. Other commissions include a composition for the city of Amsterdam, which was premiered in the renowned Concertgebouw Hall. Marion von Tilzer studied piano at the Amsterdam Conservatory, where she lives with her daughter and their cat Snowy.

Text: Sander Hoving

Presskit