Christian Benning.

» RHYTHMIC GENIUS. «

DIE ZEIT

Hailed by the press as “phenomenal” (Sueddeutsche Zeitung), a “rhythmic genius” (Die ZEIT) and “full of elegant perfection” (Kōbe Newspaper), multi-percussionist Christian Benning’s recent performances have attracted widespread attention worldwide.

His concerts, both as a soloist and with his ensemble Christian Benning Percussion Group, have recently taken place in the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Glocke in Bremen, the Herkulessaal and the Prinzregententheater in Munich, the Kraftwerk in Berlin, the Beethoven House in Bonn, the Musikverein in Graz, Milan Cathedral, the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, the Borusan Music House in Istanbul, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, the George Enescu Hall in Bucharest, the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem, the Egyptian State Opera in Cairo, the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Griswold Hall in Baltimore and at the United Nations in New York.

In 2023, he and his Percussion Group staged the first percussion concert at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona, and in 2024, as part of a North American tour, they performed at venues including the National Mall in Washington D.C. as well as at the Biennale Musica in Venice. In 2025, Benning gave its first concerts in South America (including at Cusco Cathedral and the Gran Teatro Nacional in Lima), in Hong Kong and in Japan (including Kobe, Tokyo, Yokohama and at the Expo’25 World Exhibition in Osaka). In 2027, Christian Benning Percussion Group’s debut CD “BEAThoven” will be released and presented as part of an extensive tour of China as well as at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn.

» The exceptional musical talent Christian Benning ignites a firework of rhythms and sounds on stage together with his Percussion Group. «

SUEDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

In addition to successes at international competitions and concert tours across Asia, Africa, Europe and North America, the versatile percussionist performs regularly with renowned ensembles and instrumentalists. His chamber music projects include collaborations with Simone Rubino, Juan de la Rubia, Hansjoerg Albrecht, Cameron Carpenter, Johannes Obermeier, the Arcis Saxophone Quartet and the Neeb Piano Duo, amongst others. Concerts in these line-ups have taken him to the Rheingau Music Festival, the Heidelberg Spring, La Folle Journée and the Teatro Romano di Verona. His musical expressiveness has already enriched numerous recording projects in collaboration withDeutschlandfunk and the television and radio broadcasters BR, SWR, HR, WDR and NDR; these have been released on labels such as Genuin, Prospero and Audite, where he has also recorded own compositions.

Furthermore, Christian Benning performs as a timpanist and percussionist with the Munich Bach Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the Port Louis State Orchestra, and has been a member of the Musica Libera ensemble since 2025. His passion for sharing his artistic expertise regularly takes him to academies and masterclasses at conservatoires in Germany, Italy, Spain, Romania, Israel and Mauritius as a teacher and lecturer. As a scholarship holder of the German Scholarship Foundation and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, and as a recipient of the culture prizes of theSueddeutsche Zeitung and the city of Pasing, he is also involved in a long-term, interdisciplinary collaboration with Holger Geschwindner and Dirk Nowitzki. As part of this, he has developed a rhythm-based training method for professional sport and, in particular, team sports, including visualisation software, for which his company, Be the Beat GmbH, holds an international patent. Since 2022, he has been working on a PhD in the field of sports psychology atBrunel University of London and has already been awarded two research prizes.

In 2023, he was Artist-in-Residence at the  Young Artists Festival in Bayreuth; in 2024, he was awarded the Westphalian Music Prize, and in 2026, he received the Music Prize from the Bavarian State Capital of Munich.In his quest for innovation, Christian Benning is currently developing a revolutionary hybrid percussion instrument. As a scholar of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German Scholarship Foundation), the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and as a cultural award winner of the Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the city of Pasing, he is also involved in a long-term, interdisciplinary collaboration with Holger Geschwindner and Dirk Nowitzki. In this project, he is researching a rhythm-based training concept for team sports. A notation system invented by Benning, including a visualisation software, forms the basis of his PhD, which he has been pursuing since 2022 at Brunel University of London, where he received a research award in 2025. In 2023, he was artist-in-residence at the Young Artists Festival in Bayreuth and was awarded the Westphalian Music Prize in 2024.

At the Munich University of Music and Theatre, Christian Benning completed a five-year pre-college programme, followed by a Bachelor’s, Master’s and concert examination (Excellence in Performance, 2026) under the tutelage of Dr Peter Sadlo, Arnold Riedhammer, Raymond Curfs, Adel Shalaby and Alexej Gerassimez. He gained further study experience in the USA with Robert van Sice at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins Universit and at the Yale School of Music. Masterclasses and joint concerts with Evelyn Glennie, Martin Grubinger, Lang Lang, András Schiff, Leon Fleisher, Kent Nagano and Axel Milberg have provided further formative artistic inspiration.

Christian Benning is endorsed by Meinl Cymbals, Meinl Percussion, Meinl Stick&Brush, Meinl Sonic Energy, SchlagZu, AlternateMode and vanLaack, and has been a Yamaha Artist since 2023.

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