Biography
Martin Kaptein is a Dutch classical pianist currently based in Germany. In 2025 his artistic focus centered on the late piano works of Franz Schubert and Alexander Scriabin, which he presented in lecture-recitals and interdisciplinary talks across Europe and the United States. Martin’s vision is to promote music not primarily as entertainment, but as a philosophical way of perceiving and interpreting life.
In 2020 he founded the Scriabin Club, an international platform dedicated to Scriabin’s music and ideas. The project has since grown into a worldwide network of cultural organizations, musicians, researchers, and enthusiasts. Its collaborations include work with the Scriabin Society of America and the Scriabin Association (UK) on the upcoming International Scriabin Festival (2025/2026).
Martin has won several international prizes, including First Prize at the St. Cecilia Piano Competition in Porto (2015) and First Prize at the International Festival Competition in Athens (2017). He has performed at festivals such as the Katowice Piano Festival (Poland), the Bilzen Piano Festival (Belgium), and the Festival of Contemporary Music in Bolzano (Italy), where he took part in the world premiere of 11,000 Strings by Georg Friedrich Haas. In 2024 he performed a memorial program dedicated to Maurizio Pollini at the European Piano Festival in Bolzano.
He studied in the tradition of the Russian School of Piano Playing with Michail Markov (Russia), Frank van de Laar (The Netherlands), Vitaly Samoshko (Ukraine), and Alessandra Giorgia Brustia (Italy). In 2022 he graduated cum laude with a Master’s degree in piano performance from the Tilburg Conservatory (The Netherlands), performing Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto as his final examination.
Alongside his solo work, Martin is active as a chamber musician and accompanist. He has collaborated extensively with singers and instrumentalists and served as a vocal accompanist at ArtEZ and Fontys Conservatories in the Netherlands. In recent years he has also been repeatedly invited as a jury member and official pianist at competitions such as the European Romance Festival in Hamburg and the Concorso Internazionale della Canzone in San Marino.
In addition to performing, Martin teaches piano, music theory, and composition to students in Germany and worldwide. Beyond music, he maintains interests in various domains—especially open-source technologies—and has developed web platforms and tools for the Scriabin Club and other cultural initiatives. His broader fascination with languages and cultures further informs his approach to performing and teaching.