Sonja Betten

Sonja Betten was born in Kiel (Germany) in 1978 and grew up in the Palatinate region from 1985 onwards.

In 1995, she won the 1st Federal Prize for "Jugend musiziert" in the piano accompaniment category in Nuremberg.

 

After graduating from high school with a classical language diploma and receiving the award for outstanding achievements in music, she studied Protestant church music and organ artistic training with Prof. Dr. Ludger Lohmann and Prof. Martha Schuster at the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart from 1997 to 2006, graduating with a concert exam in the organ soloist class.

 

She received further artistic inspiration through master classes with Hans-Ola Ericsson, Jürgen Essl, Olivier Latry, Martin Lücker, Peter Planyavsky, Michael Radulescu, and Heinz Wunderlich.

 

Sonja Betten's organ playing has received awards at international competitions:

In 2003, she won 1st prize at the III. International August Gottfried Ritter Organ Competition in Magdeburg. In 2007, she won second prize at the VIII International Gottfried Silbermann Organ Competition in Freiberg, Saxony.

 

After completing her studies, Sonja Betten worked as a church musician at St. Peter's Church in Stuttgart-Gablenberg from 2007 to 2009 and completed the church music internship of the Evangelical Church of Württemberg in Göppingen from 2009 to 2010.

In 2011, she recorded a CD on the baroque organ of the Lichtenstern Monastery Church (Württemberg) to mark the anniversary of "175 Years of Diaconal Service in Lichtenstern."

 

Since 2014 Sonja Betten lives in Switzerland and, after serving as organist in the parishes of Sargans, Maienfeld, Davos, Arosa, Bad Ragaz/Taminatal, and the Walensee pastoral unit, is currently organist in the Catholic parishes of Stansstad, Obbürgen, and Kehrsiten (Canton of Nidwalden).

She regularly performs organ concerts in Switzerland and abroad.

 

Her organ concert invitations have taken her to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. She played for example at the Hall Organ Week (Hall in Tirol, Austria), the Hopfgarten Chamber Music Festival (Tyrol, Austria), in Dornbirn (Austria), at the Seeklang Festival in Hergiswil (Switzerland), in Magdeburg (Georg-Philipp-Telemann Concert Hall), in Freiberg/Saxony, at the Stuttgart Organ Sounds Festival, in Kiel (Christian-Albrechts University), at the Tübingen Organ Summer, at the Grossmünster in Zurich, and played also organ concerts as part of the Engadin Organ Friends (Switzerland).