Johann Sonnleitner

Johann Sonnleitner (born 1941) is an Austrian music educator and expert as interpreter of early music on historical keyboard instruments. He is an organist, a harpsichordist and music historian. Life and career Born in Trofaiach, Sonnleitner studied organ at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Alois Forer, harpsichord with Eta Harich-Schneider and school music as well as history and pedagogy at the University of Vienna. He completed his education by attending master classes with Gustav Leonhardt, Anton Heiller, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Marie-Claire Alain, Cor Kee among others. He also is an international concert musician as soloist, chamber music partner and song accompanist. He began teaching improvisation and score playing at the Vienna Musikhochschule and continued with a six-year assistant to Nikolaus Harnoncourt at the Mozarteum Salzburg. In 1979, he came to the Zurich University of the Arts as a teacher for historical keyboard instruments. From 1983 to 2003, he taught regularly at the teaching and research institute Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. For more than two decades, Sonnleitner led the master classes for keyboard instruments within the Innsbrucker