Josef Haller
M.Mus.
Josef Haller teaches piano and contemporary music at Mozarteum University Salzburg (Innsbruck campus). A pianist and composer from South Tyrol, his work moves between classical, contemporary, experimental, electronic and jazz traditions, exploring new connections between musical styles through performance, improvisation and composition.
Haller received his early musical training at his local music school and at the Claudio Monteverdi Conservatory in Bolzano, where he studied with Andrea Bonatta. From 2012 to 2017, he studied Instrumental and Vocal Pedagogy at the Mozarteum in Innsbruck, alongside piano with Sebastian Euler and composition with Franz Baur at the Tyrolean State Conservatory. He subsequently completed a master's degree in piano with a focus on contemporary music and composition at the Royal Academy of Music Aarhus in Denmark, and later undertook further studies in jazz piano with Stephan Costa at the Tyrolean State Conservatory. He has also participated in masterclasses with musicians including Arie Vardi, Tamara Stefanovich, Teppo Koivisto, Christoph Hammer, Kirill Kashin and Jens Elvekjær.
As a performer, Haller appears regularly with Ensemble WirkWerk and in a duo with the Tyrolean cellist Valerie Fritz, presenting programmes that combine classical, contemporary and electronic music. He is also co-founder and curator of the Innsbruck concert series noiz//elektrorauschen, which showcases experimental sound art, improvisation, electroacoustic music, sound installations and interdisciplinary performance.
Haller has received numerous awards as a pianist, including prizes at the Wendl & Lung Young Pianist Competition in Vienna, the Lothar Bandermann Prize of Vienna Young Pianists, the Piano Academy Eppan and the International Johannes Brahms Chamber Music Competition. His compositions have been performed at festivals including Klangspuren Schwaz, TransArt Bolzano, Zeitimpuls – Tyrolean Days for New Music, the Hong Kong–Vienna Music Festival, the Pulsar Festival in Copenhagen and the Panorama Festival in Aarhus. In 2016, he received both the Hilde Zach Composition Scholarship from the City of Innsbruck and a composition scholarship from Kraftwerk Neue Musik Tirol. A selection of his works has been released on CD by Petrichor Records and Helbling/Naxos.