We are delighted to welcome Alma Deutscher to UE as a composer.
Alma Deutscher (born 2005) is a successful British composer, violinist, pianist and conductor. She began playing the piano at the age of two and the violin at the age of three. She composed her first piano sonata at the age of six and a violin and piano concerto between the ages of 9 and 12. Zubin Mehta called her ‘one of the greatest musical talents of her time’.
Alma Deutscher's opera ‘Cinderella’ was performed in an orchestral version in Vienna in 2016 and has since been performed several times in various opera houses in America and Europe. In 2019, she released her first solo piano CD ‘From My Book of Melodies’ on Sony Classical. Saarländischer Rundfunk described the album as follows: ‘The poetry of Franz Schubert, the melancholy of Chopin, the grace, lightness and brilliance of Mozart - all of this can be found in Deutscher's piano gems.’ In 2019, Alma Deutscher made her debut at Carnegie Hall and was honoured with the European Taurus Cultural Award at the Vienna State Opera. In 2021, an album of her piano pieces was published by G. Schirmer. Alma Deutscher's second full-length opera, ‘Des Kaisers neue Walzer’, a work commissioned by the Salzburg State Theatre, was premiered there in 2023.
(c) Kent Cousins - The Glenn Gould Foundation
In Alma Deutscher's interpretation of the traditional fairy tale, Cinderella is not just a pretty girl who wins the prince because of her dainty foot. Cinderella is a talented composer, envied and oppressed by her stepmother, who runs an opera house, and by her stepsisters, both budding opera divas. Nevertheless, Cinderella triumphs because of her talent: Cinderella and the Prince, a poet, will find each other, just as a poem finds its melody.