Alma Deustcher Alma Deustcher

Alma Elizabeth Deutscher (born February 2005 in Basingstoke) is an English child prodigy composer, pianist and violinist.

At age six she composed her first piano sonata. At age seven, she completed a short opera The Sweeper of Dreams. Aged nine, she wrote a concerto for violin and orchestra. At the age of ten she wrote her first full-length opera, Cinderella, which had its European premiere in Vienna in 2016 under the patronage of conductor Zubin Mehta. The U.S. premiere a year later at Opera San Jose  was released on DVD by Sony Classical. At the age of twelve, Deutscher premiered her first piano concerto. She gave her debut at Carnegie Hall in December 2019.

Background[edit]

Deutscher was born in Basingstoke in 2005, the daughter of literature professor Janie Deutscher (née Steen) and Israeli linguist Guy Deutscher. Both are amateur musicians.

She began playing piano at the age of two, followed by violin at three. At four she was composing and improvising on the piano, and by five, had begun writing down her compositions. These first written notations were unclear, but by six, she could write clear compositions and had composed her first piano sonata. At seven, she composed her first short opera, at nine, a violin concerto, and her first full-length opera at age ten. According to her father, she could name the notes on a piano when she was two. "For her third birthday I bought her a little violin as a toy. She was so excited by it and tried playing on it for days on end, so we decided to try to find her a teacher. Within less than a year she was playing Handel sonatas." In a 2017 interview with the Financial Times, Deutscher said: "I remember when I was three and I was listening to a lullaby by Richard Strauss, I loved it! I especially loved the harmony; I always call it the Strauss harmony now. And after it finished I asked my parents 'How could music be so beautiful'"

Deutscher's initial media exposure may be traced to writer and comedian Stephen Fry publicising her YouTube channel when she was seven, by writing: "Simply mind-blowing: Alma Deutscher playing her own compositions. A new Mozart?", with a link to one of Deutscher's videos. Television crews arrived at her family home the next day. Guy Deutscher spoke of his concerns surrounding Alma's initial press coverage. He explained that the family had been unprepared for the intense exposure and that they view as their most important task as protecting her and ensuring that she has a happy childhood. In September 2014, a viral YouTube mashup video released by Israeli musician Kutiman ("Give It Up") featured a 4-second ostinato assembled from pieces of one of Deutscher's early videos.

By 2019, Deutscher's official YouTube channel has gathered more than ten million views and 100,000 subscribers.