Heike Matthiesen

Classical guitarist Heike Matthiesen was born in Braunschweig, West Germany on June 27, 1964. The daughter of a choirmaster and a pianist, she received her musical education on the piano, before turning to the guitar at the age of 18. After studying with Heinz Teuchert at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt, she worked as an assistant with the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra, with whom she performed works by Mozart, Weber, Donizetti, Rossini, Berg, and Shostakovich. To develop her technique, she took lessons with Pepe Romero for the Spanish repertoire, and attended master classes with Manuel Barrueco, David Russell, Roland Dyens, Alvaro Pierri, and Leo Brouwer. She began her solo career while also working with ensembles such as Villa Musica, with whom she began collaborating with in 1997. Alongside performing recitals around the world and appearances at guitar festivals, she became a jury member for competitions for young guitarists. Heike Matthiesen’s research into female composers led her to manage the collection of the Archiv Frau und Musik library in Frankfurt beginning in 2016. Heike Matthiesen’s catalog included acclaimed albums such as Soy y Luna (1998), Tristemusette (2001), Serenade: Phantasies and Variations on 19th Century Opera (2013), and Guitar Ladies (2016), which was dedicated to female composers such as María Luisa Anido, Ida Presti, Sofia Goubaïdoulina, Sylvie Bodorová, Annette Kruisbrink, and Maria Linnemann. Heike Matthiesen, who made a name for herself on social media with her instructional videos, released her final album, Guitar Divas, in 2023. Diagnosed with skin cancer in 2019, she died on December 22, 2023, at the age of 59.

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