Maximilian Haberstock Biography
Maximilian Haberstock (2004) is a nineteen-year-old conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently obtaining his musical education at the University of Music & Performing Arts Munich, where his teachers include Prof. Thomas Böckheler (piano) and Prof. Kay Westermann (composition). He is studying conducting with Prof. Georg Christoph Sandmann (Dresden).
The first prize winner of the German national music competition is no stranger to the stage, whether the Philharmonic Hall in Munich or the Carnegie Hall in New York. In 2017 he performed with Lang Lang for the German President at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.
In 2018 Maximilian Haberstock was chosen as Student-in-Residence in piano at the Verbier Festival, and has been invited back in 2019 as a Junior Conducting Fellow into the Mentorship Program of Valery Gergiev. He returned to Verbier in the summer of 2021 as James Gaffigan’s conducting assistant with the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra.
Since then Haberstock participated in conducting masterclasses with Prof. Johannes Schlaefli, Maestro Michel Tabachnik as well as Prof. Rüdiger Bohn with orchestras such as Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra and Leipzig Symphony Orchestra at Gewandhaus.
In 2023, he has been accepted to the prestigious Gstaad Conducting Academy as the youngest participant in the history of the festival.
In November 2022, he conducted the Craiova "Oltenia" Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Following the resounding success of this concert, and at the special request of the orchestra, Haberstock has been appointed Principal Guest Conductor for the seasons 2023/24 and 2024/25, during which he will conduct the Oltenia Philharmonic in six concerts.
Haberstock made his opera conducting debut with Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles at Opera Română Craiova in April 2023 which led to an invitation from Opera Plovdiv, where he conducted Bizet’s Carmen in November 2023 and Strauss’ Die Fledermaus in February 2024.
In December 2019, Maximilian Haberstock took the stage for the first time as the conductor of his newly founded ensemble the “Arcis Chamber Orchestra”. Subsequently, he performed together with his orchestra in two concerts, with all the proceeds going to his charity project.
In May 2023 Haberstock and his orchestra, now expanded to 52 musicians from over 20 nations and renamed the “Young Philharmonic Orchestra Munich”, performed with the acclaimed cellist Alban Gerhardt in Munich within the Stars & Rising Stars Festival. The concert was a huge success with standing ovations.
In May 2024 the second concert which followed - this time with 65 musicians in the orchestra and with the world-renowned cellist Daniel Müller-Schott - featured an all-Brams program and received not only huge public jubilation but also great critical acclaim.
Maximilian Haberstock and his sister Ayla Sophie are the founders of the non-profit project “Young Musicians Live”. They are proud to be able to send seventy-five refugee children to school with the money they raised in their concerts for the benefit of Zeltschule e.V. (“Tent School”).
He was the youngest speaker at TEDxYouth@München 2019; he received a standing ovation for his talk: “Finding Stories in Classical Music”
Haberstock is a scholar of the “Young Musicians on World Stages” foundation, created and mentored by Güher & Süher Pekinel. He is also a recipient of the “Carl-Heinz Illies-Grant” as well as the “Gerd Bucerius-Grant“ of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.
Competitions & Awards Piano, Composition & Conducting
Awards in Piano, Composition & Conducting
- Principal Guest Conductor of Craiova "Oltenia" Philharmonic Orchestra 2023/24 and 2024/25
- Assistant to Maestro James Gaffigan at Verbier Festival 2021
- Gerd Bucerius Scholarship of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben
- Accepted into the Pre-College program at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, July 2020, Piano Class of Prof. Thomas Böckheler
- Selected by Güher & Süher Pekinel as a scholar of “Young Musicians on World Stages”
- Carl-Heinz Illies-Scholarship of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben
- Accepted as Student-in-Residence in conducting at the Verbier Festival 2019
- Accepted as Student-in-Residence in piano at the 25th Verbier Festival 2018
- 1st prize, Jugend musiziert 2017 solo piano, regional, federal state, and national level
- Youngest participant in the 28th Orchestral Workshop for Young Composers 2017 (Halberstadt)
- 1st prize, International Piano & Strings Competition 2017 (New York), solo piano
- Accepted for the Lang Lang Masterclass 2016 (Warsaw)
- 2nd prize, Young People’s Composition Competition 2016 University of Music and Performing Arts Munich
Masterclasses Piano, Composition & Conducting
Masterclasses Piano
- Prof. Mira Marchenko Zakhar Bron School of Music Zurich, 2019
- Prof. Boris Petrushansky Anton Rubinstein Musikakademie Düsseldorf, 2019
- Prof. Sergei Babayan Verbier Festival 2018
- Prof. Michel Béroff Verbier Festival 2018
- Prof. Richard Goode Verbier Festival 2018
- Prof. Boris Petrushansky Imola Piano Academy 2017
- Lang Lang & Allianz Junior Music Camp Chopin Institute und Teatr Polski, 2016
- Prof. Andreas Weber Mozarteum, Summer Academy 2016
Masterclasses Chamber Music
- Prof. Gábor Takács-Nagy Verbier Festival 2018
- Prof. András Keller Verbier Festival 2018
Masterclasses Composition
- 28th Orchestral Workshop for Young Composers 2017 Nordharzer Städtebundtheater Halberstadt, 2017
- Prof. Georg Friedrich Haas Mozarteum, Summer Academy 2016
- Prof. Jan Müller-Wieland University of Music and Performing Arts Munich, 2016
Masterclasses Conducting
- Gstaad Conducting Academy 2023 with Jaap van Zweden, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and Johannes Schlaefli
- Prof. Johannes Schlaefli Allegra Festival Orchestra, Sofia, 2022
- Michel Tabachnik Leipzig Symphony Orchestra, 2022
- Prof. Rüdiger Bohn Master Orchestra Brescia, 2022
- Prof. Rüdiger Bohn Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, 2022
- James Gaffigan Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra, 2019
- Prof. Marco Boni Imola Piano Academy 2017
