Biography

German-born classical pianist and piano pedagogue Dr. Andreas M. Boelcke holds three university degrees in music. He received his bachelors degree (B.A.) from Missouri Western State University in 2002. Following a year of intense piano studies under Dr. Elinor Freer at the University of Missouri in Columbia, he was awarded with a full scholarship at the College Conservatory of Music, CCM, in Cincinnati, where he completed the Masters of Music (M.M.) in 2005, and the doctoral degree (D.M.A.) in piano performance with a cognate in piano pedagogy, in December 2008. 

Dr. Boelcke has performed as a soloist and in chamber groups in Germany, Belgium, China, Indonesia, and the United States. His many awards include prizes at the German Young Artist's competition "Jugend musiziert", the Missouri Teacher’s Music Association, Hellam Young Artists Competition, and scholarships at MU, MWSU, and for the Wavre International Piano Course in Belgium. Boelcke has appeared in master-classes with Ann Schein, Rita Sloan, James Tocco, Eugene and Elizabeth Pridonoff, Micheal Chertock, and Johann Schmidt. His teachers have included Jerry Anderson, Elinor Freer, Robert Weirich, and Frank Weinstock. While in the U.S. he served as Music Director at Eastminster Presbyterian Church Cincinnati for three years. Under the name the Amitayus Duo, Dr. Boelcke and the American cellist Dr. Adam Cathcart give regular concerts around the world. 

For more than fifteen years Dr. Boelcke has taught piano at all levels ranging from beginners to advanced. He has worked in public and private music schools in Germany, China and in the United States. A Graduate Teaching Assistant for five consecutive years, he has taught at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and at the College Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati as a group and private instructor including Graduate and Honors classes. After finishing his doctoral studies Dr. Boelcke moved to Berlin where he founded the Piano Academy Berlin. 

Dr. Boelcke's contribution to a cultural exchange between Asia and the West continues to increase. He has given masterclasses and concerts at the Institut Seni Indonesia, in Jogjakarta, and in China at the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, and the Liu Shih-Kun Piano Art Center. He performed for an audience of ethnic minorities including Tibetans, Yi, Li, Miao, and Dong at the Southwest University for Nationalities (SWUN) in Chengdu. In April 2011 he gave, together with A. Cathcart the German premiere of Gao Ping's first sonata for piano and cello in Berlin, a work they recorded later that year. He is currently preparing a cultural exchange program in Berlin for talented Chinese students.