Professor Schickedanz is now one of the most sought-after violin pedagogues in Germany. He began his independent teaching career in 2004 when he accepted a full-time professorship at the University of Music and Theater in Hamburg, where he still teaches. He was also head of the string department for several years, vice dean, and is currently dean. Between 2018 and 2022 he also taught regularly at the Music Academy in Brescia.
His students include competition prizewinners, for example recently the winners of the 2023 Lipizer Competition Ziling Guo and the 2024 Valsesia Competition Mio Sasaki. Many of his graduates have been or are currently holding positions in major German orchestras (including Aachen, Augsburg, Berlin, Bochum, Bremen, Chemnitz, Cottbus, Darmstadt, Dortmund, Essen, Freiburg, Gießen, Hamburg, Hanover, Heilbronn, Leipzig, Lübeck, Lüneburg, Munich, Münster, Neustrelitz, Oldenburg, Osnabrück, Recklinghausen and Wiesbaden) or abroad (Bulgaria, China, Denmark, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Qatar, South Korea, Spain, the USA, etc.) or have already started their own teaching activities, e.g. at the conservatories in Shanghai, Tianjin and Wuhan and at Tongji University.
Schickedanz regularly gives master classes in Europe and has also received invitations to teach at universities such as the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, the Shanghai Conservatory, Tongji University, California State University Long Beach or music institutions in Kiev/Ukraine, Havana/Cuba or Port of Spain/Trinidad.
Since 2019 he has also been the artistic director of the International Violin Summer Academy Festival at the Bavarian Music Academy Hammelburg, which focuses its activities in particular on the various aspects of the instrument and jury chairman of the International Violin Competition Hammelburg.
For health reasons, he had to quit his previously busy concert activity, which included performances in Asia, Europe and North America. In addition to his performing activity, over 80 works have been released on CD. The recording of the 6 solo sonatas and partitas by Johann Sebastian Bach, released by Audite in 2018, received special recognition with a nomination for the International Classical Music Awards 2019. Schickedanz was celebrated as an outstanding champion by the British Gramophone Magazine for the CD with the complete duo works for violin and piano by Johannes Brahms, released by the US label Centaur. The last releases are 2 CDs with duo music for violin and piano by the Dutch-German composer Julius Röntgen and a double CD on the cpo label in coproduction with Deutschlandfunk Köln with the complete duo music for violin and piano by the German romantic composer Friedrich Gernsheim.
Mr. Schickedanz received his professional training initially at the MHS Freiburg with Jörg Hofmann and as a DAAD scholarship holder at Indiana University Bloomington with Franco Gulli, where he also taught as an associate instructor for violin from 1995. After completing his German concert exam, he began teaching as an assistant to his former Professor Uwe-Martin Haiberg at the UdK Berlin. Further positions followed as a lecturer at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and as a visiting professor at the UdK Berlin.
In recent years, composing has become more and more appealing to Christoph Schickedanz. After many years of experience – also as an interpreter of contemporary music – Christoph Schickedanz decided to publish his first own works in 2018 and has since enjoyed ever-increasing popularity among his fellow musicians and, to an increasing extent, among the music-loving public. For example, Hessischer Rundfunk has broadcast his “Quintet” for trumpet, violin, viola, cello and piano, which premiered in 2020, several times. In 2021, his work “Rondo” received the highest rating at the “2nd World Championship in Composition” in Vienna with 2nd prize in the “piano solo” category. “Canto doloroso e danza” for violoncello solo was awarded 3rd prize at the “2nd International Music Competition” of the “Academia Musica”, also held in Vienna, and finally he was a finalist at the “SIMM” composition competition in Milan with his work “Suite piccola” for harpsichord. When he again took part in the “Academia Musica” competition in Vienna, all 3 submitted works received 3rd prizes: the piano trio, the septet fantasy and the studies for piano-forte – with the latter two receiving the second highest rating in their respective categories. In addition, his arrangement of Schönberg’s string sextet “Verklärte Nacht” for piano quartet which was celebrated by the audience and received extremely positive reviews from the press at the premiere in the Chamber Music Hall of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg was frequently performed in several European nations by Notos Piano Quartet.
In 2024, the Mandelring Quartet commissioned a String Quintet for its 40th anniversary season, which was subsequently performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, among others. In addition, in July 2024 the premiere of the Fantasy Movement for Steptet marked the first performance of one of his works in the Czech Republic.
