Claudio Martínez Mehner was born in 1970, and began his studies at the Royal Conservatory in Madrid at an early age, with Amparo Fuster, Pedro Lerma and Joaquín Soriano. He continued his studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid with Professor Dmitri Bashkirov. He later went on to study with Vitalij Margulis at the University of Music Freiburg, at the “Fondazione per il Pianoforte” in Como (Italy), and at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore (USA) with Leon Fleisher. He was also taught for several years by Professor Ferenc Rados.
Claudio Martínez Mehner was awarded the 1st prize at the German “Jugend musiziert” national competition for young musicians in Nuremberg/Erlangen on two occasions. In 1990 he was a finalist at the “Paloma O’Shea” international piano competition in Santander, and a few years later, he received 1st prizes at several international piano competitions: the “Pilar Bayona” competition in Zaragoza, the “Fondation Chimay” competition in Belgium, and the “Dino Ciani” competition in Milan.
He has performed as a soloist throughout Europe, in the USA, Canada, Russia, Central America, Japan and Korea, including performances with the Munich Philharmonic, the Moscow Philharmonic, the “Filarmonica della Scala”, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonic, the “Orchestre de la Suisse Romande”, the “Norddeutsche Rundfunk” Symphony Orchestra, the “Philharmonia Hungarica” and most of the major Spanish orchestras.
Claudio Martínez Mehner is currently Professor for Piano at both the University of Music in Basel and the “Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln” in Cologne.