Alma
Deutscher
The composer
Alma Deutscher has been composing since she was five, and the Wiener Zeitung has called her “a melodist of the highest order”. Her works include two full-length operas, concertos for violin and for piano, orchestral and chamber music, and many pieces for piano. They have been heard in concert halls and opera houses on three continents, by millions of listeners online, and on CD and DVD. Several new recordings will be released in 2027, including her two concertos, with Alma as soloist; orchestral works with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alma; and a new album of piano pieces.
The conductor
Alma Deutscher began conducting at sixteen, and studied with Johannes Wildner and Sean Edwards at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She was initially drawn to the podium by the wish to interpret her own orchestral music, but soon turned to the classical and romantic repertoire. She has conducted her opera Cinderella at Opera San José (California) and at the Virginia Arts Festival, and returns to it in 2027 in a new production at the Theater für Niedersachsen. She has also conducted The Magic Flute, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci at Opera San José. In November 2026 she begins a collaboration with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra on a series of semi-staged opera performances, opening with Don Giovanni. On the concert stage, her programmes range from the classical and romantic symphonic repertoire to Viennese dance music, from the Strauss family to her own waltzes. Her conducting debut in Germany, with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony in October 2026, was greeted by the Hildesheimer Allgemeine as “a brilliant comet in the musical firmament”.
Early years
Alma Deutscher was born in England in 2005. She began playing the piano at two and the violin at three.
At four she was improvising her own melodies at the piano, and by six she was composing complete pieces: an Andante for violin and piano and her first piano sonata. At seven she wrote a short opera, The Sweeper of Dreams.
Her early musical education centred on improvisation, through partimenti, a method of teaching composition developed in eighteenth-century Italy. She became so fluent in the style of the eighteenth century that she later described it as her musical “native language”.
At nine she composed a violin concerto, and at ten she began her first full-length opera, Cinderella. Its production in Vienna in 2016 made headlines around the world, including the front page of China Daily. At twelve she completed a piano concerto. In 2017 she premiered both concertos with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, as soloist on the violin in one and at the piano in the other. Two years later, at her sold-out debut at Carnegie Hall, she again played both concertos, on violin and on piano. She has also performed her concertos as soloist with renowned orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Shenzhen Symphony and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, and has given violin and piano recitals at the Lucerne Festival and the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival.
In 2018 she moved with her family to Vienna. Among her awards is the European Culture Prize, which she received in 2019, the year in which, at fourteen, she was named by the German magazine Stern as one of its twelve “Heroes of Tomorrow”.
Reviews
“A brilliant comet in the musical firmament”
“… The intensity and devotion she brought to the performance were hard to surpass. Her keen sense of melodic line and the dynamic tensions within it was complemented by her infectious, compelling body language. The orchestral musicians were visibly eager to respond to her and give her their all. … Thrilled by the performance, the audience rewarded its orchestra and guest conductor with a seemingly endless standing ovation.”
On Alma’s conducting debut in Germany · Eckhard Albrecht, Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung, October 2026
“Alma Deutscher led [Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci] with a wonderful blend of suave lyricism and jagged power. You could hear her masterfully charting the explosive urgency that infuses much of each score, and shepherding the proceedings around the expansive islands of relative calm.”
Joshua Kosman (formerly of the San Francisco Chronicle), On a Pacific Aisle, February 2026
“Her concertos are amazing works. The concerto for piano and orchestra … is a work of enormous power. Its language oscillates between a certain classicism and a passionate romanticism reminiscent of Mendelssohn. The freshness of her melodic invention, the perfect control of romantic harmony and above all the mastery of the form, the creativity, take your breath away.”
Andrés Ibáñez, ABC Cultural, June 2019
“Pneume, for breath, is the most compelling – suave and gossamer, recreating the moment when a listener cannot breathe under the sheer weight of musical beauty.”
On The Euterpides · Heather Mac Donald, The New Criterion, September 2025
“Keen youngsters from the audience selected four random notes from a hat for her to improvise on. After a minute’s silence, Deutscher came up with an excellent piece of improvisation that left listeners in awe.”
On Alma’s Hong Kong debut · Christopher Halls, South China Morning Post, February 2024
“What this composer is capable of is indeed miraculous.”
de Volkskrant, January 2020
“Even just the transition from the cadenza to the coda of the first movement reveals the composer’s originality. And how, just before the final chord, she charmingly dissolves the harmonic knot which had been tied with a harmonic coup in the first bars of the concerto – that mesmerizes.”
Wilhelm Sinkovicz, Die Presse, April 2018
“To find a voice as original and as uplifting as Alma Deutscher’s, is more than a gift – it is hope.”
On Cinderella · OperaWire, December 2017
“Deutscher hosts a firework of her catchiest ear-worms, and the twelve-year-old is a melodist of the highest order. Her cantilenas … convey bottomless grief or overflowing longing.”
On Cinderella for children at the Vienna State Opera · Christoph Irrgeher, Wiener Zeitung, January 2018
“Perhaps opera, which has so often been pronounced dead, can now finally gain a new life force, when it returns to melody. The brilliant child Alma could have a contribution to that.”
Robert Schediwy, Der Standard, February 2017
“That the strait-laced among the audience might find her classic-romantic style far too ‘retro’, doesn’t bother her in the least. She just composes what she likes: beautiful melodies, in stylistically confident harmonisations … She doesn’t want to write dissonances, just because it might be considered chic.”
On Alma’s debut at the Lucerne Festival · Susanne Kübler, Tages-Anzeiger, August 2018
“Her music is exquisitely crafted. Her enormous virtuosity and self-assured maturity surprised. And because the jubilation of the audience did not end, Alma gave a pianistic encore – and what an encore! She let different members of the audience draw notes from a little bag. And she began to improvise over these four tones, and the sparks were flying.”
Helmut Christian, Kleine Zeitung, July 2017
“The poetry of Franz Schubert, the melancholy of Chopin, the grace, lightness and brilliance of Mozart – all this can be found in Deutscher’s piano miniatures …”
On From My Book of Melodies · Saarländischer Rundfunk, November 2019
“These are supple, powerful, sumptuous tones, with which this child creates musical wonders.”
Kronen Zeitung, July 2017
Press
A small selection from the many articles and television programmes about Alma.
Television
BBC One, Imagine · September 2017
CBS, 60 Minutes · November 2017
NBC Nightly News · December 2019
Newspapers and magazines
The New York Times · June 2019
This 14-Year-Old Prodigy Doesn’t Want to Be Called ‘a New Mozart’
The Wall Street Journal · March 2020
The Times · May 2022
The Times’ Leading Article on Alma Deutscher’s call for beautiful music
San Francisco Chronicle · November 2022
Le Figaro · April 2018
China Daily · October 2016
