For decades, Justus Frantz has been a formative figure in musical life as an internationally successful pianist, as a conductor of outstanding orchestras, as a presenter and tireless music educator, as a visionary of classical music life and as the founder, in particular, of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Philharmonic of Nations. With his dedication to music and his enthusiasm, he is an ambassador for the classical musical heritage of Central Europe and especially Germany to the world.

Frantz was born in Hohensalza in what is now Poland and grew up in Testorf in East Holstein. While studying piano with Eliza Hansen in Hamburg and Wilhelm Kempff in Positan, Justus Frantz studied conducting with Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg. In 1967 he won the attention of a large audience as a prizewinner at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.

When Herbert von Karajan hired the young pianist in 1970, his international breakthrough came. Tours with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Orchester de Paris and the Czech Philharmonic through France, Germany and Austria as well as appearances at the Salzburg Festival followed.

Appearances with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic in the USA in 1975 established the creative friendship between Justus Frantz and the American composer and conductor. In 1986, Justus Frantz founded the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and ran it as director until 1994. He made it one of the most important festivals in Europe and created a format that has become a model for numerous other festivals.

Justus Frantz has repeatedly developed unconventional concepts in order to attract new audiences and enable unbiased encounters with music. For ten years he hosted and performed music on the successful television show “Aehrung! Classic”, for which he received the Golden Camera in 1993.

Justus Frantz is the artistic director of the Philharmonic of Nations, which he founded in 1995 and was co-inspired by Leonard Bernstein and Yehudi Menuhin. With this orchestra he performed in over 1000 concerts – always with the aim of not only making excellent music, but also symbolically promoting the peaceful coexistence of people. Among other things, he conducted in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations in New York in front of eighty heads of state, at the “Michael Jackson and Friends” charity concert in the Munich Olympic Stadium and at an exclusive concert with Pope John Paul II.

Justus Frantz regularly works with well-known orchestras and opera houses around the world, such as the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater St. Petersburg, the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, the Novaya Rossiya Orchestra, the Great Symphony Orchestra Moscow, the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban, the Georgian Chamber Orchestra and the Sinfonia Varsovia.

In 2013, Justus Frantz was the first Christian German artist to be given the position of chief conductor of an Israeli orchestra at the Israel Sinfonietta. With a major Brahms festival in Israel in 2014, the Hamburg-based conductor not only fulfilled a musical dream, but also built a symbolic bridge to his homeland.

His annual “Finca Festival Frantz & Friends” on Gran Canaria has been one of the “insider tips” of international music life for years. Well-known soloists and conductors, not only the Philharmonic of Nations, but also other world-class orchestras, meet every year for joint concerts in a relaxed atmosphere.