Artistic Profile and Training
Daniela Willimek received her piano training in Germany under Prof. Sontraud Speidel and in Austria under Prof. Leonid Brumberg at the MUK – Music and Arts Private University of the City of Vienna. Even before completing her A-levels, she was a young student at the Karlsruhe University of Music. She completed her three courses of study – the Diploma, Artistic Training and Concert Examination – all with distinction.
She also gained significant artistic inspiration through her active participation in numerous masterclasses, including those given by Tatjana Nikolaijewa, Stefan Askenase and Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. During her studies, she received scholarships from the German National Academic Foundation, the Richard Wagner Scholarship Foundation in Bayreuth and the Brahms Society in Baden-Baden. She is a prize-winner at several prestigious national and international competitions, including the Épinal International Piano Competition and the Competition of the State Music Academies of the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin. She was also awarded the Concert Prize by GEDOK (Association of German and Austrian Women Artists).
Concert performances and artistic projects
Daniela Willimek’s concert career has taken her throughout Europe and South America. She has appeared in numerous radio and television productions, including collaborations with SWR, NDR, Deutschlandradio and Radio Stockholm.
Being awarded the GEDOK Concert Prize sparked her in-depth exploration of works by female composers. Under her maiden name, Daniela Steinbach, she produced the highly acclaimed CD series ‘Faszination Frauenmusik’ (The Fascination of Women’s Music). In this series, she highlights forgotten treasures and rarities of female composition from various eras, supplemented by world premiere recordings of piano works by the Romanian composer Violeta Dinescu and the Karlsruhe-based composer Margarete Schweikert.
Teaching and nurturing young talent
As a lecturer in piano, Daniela Willimek has been teaching at the Karlsruhe University of Music for many years. The sound artistic and methodological training she provides is reflected in the outstanding results achieved by her piano students. Through targeted support for young talent, she also prepares prospective students for the entrance examination in piano as a principal subject with a high success rate, paving the way for them to enter German music academies.
Social Commitment and Artistic Direction
Alongside her work at the university, Daniela Willimek has for many years combined her artistic work with social commitment in her hometown of Bretten. In keeping with a long-standing tradition, she regularly organises charity concerts with students from her own piano class as well as from the classes of her colleagues.
This commitment led to the establishment in 2023 of the ‘Piano Pur’ concert series, which is organised in cooperation with the Protestant parish and has become a firm fixture in the region’s cultural calendar. The concerts always serve charitable purposes: the proceeds go towards local and national social projects – including UN Refugee Aid, which recognised the artist’s initiative with a personal letter of thanks. In 2024, Daniela Willimek was officially honoured by the town of Bretten for her voluntary work.
Research, Publications and Reviewing
Together with her husband, Bernd Willimek, she conducts research into the theory of striving tendencies and the emotional impact of music. She has presented her research findings in lectures at numerous international conferences, including the Croatian Association of Music Theorists in Zagreb (2014), the Israel Musicological Society in Tel Aviv (2016), APSCOM in Kyoto (2017), the International Workshop on Language, Music, and Computing in Saint Petersburg (2017) and Sempre MET in London (2018).
Daniela Willimek publishes in various music journals and magazines both in Germany and abroad. Her publications include the specialist book *Music and Emotions. Studies on the Theory of Striving (Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag, 2019), as well as the article ‘Revealing the Mystery of Emotions in Sounds: The Theory of Musical Equilibration Explains the Impact of Ordered Sounds as the Listener’s Identification with Processes of Will’, published in the international academic journal *Auditory Perception & Cognition* (Taylor & Francis, 2023). In addition, Daniela Willimek contributes her expertise as a peer reviewer for the renowned publisher Elsevier.