Christine Schornsheim studied at the C.P.E. Bach Musical High School in Berlin from 1969 to 1976, and continued her piano studies at the Hanns Eisler Musical Academy of Berlin, until 1982.

As a solo co-repeater at the Hans-Otto-Theater in Potsdam until 1983, Christine Schornsheim kept studying harpsichord and playing the Basso Continuo with Walter Heinz Bernstein, in Leipzig.

She has been regularly performing in concerts as a harpsichordist since 1985, and attended Master Classes with Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman, and Johann Sonnleitner.

Christine Schornsheim has been a soloist with several conductors, such as Sir Georg Solti, Seiji Ozawa, Claudio Abbado, Leopold Hager, Peter Schreier, Markus Creed, Georg Christoph Biller, Hellmuth Rilling, Andreas Spering, Hermann Max, and Christoph Poppen.

Her presence in public appearances, as harpsichordist and fortepianist, has been growing from year to year since 1985. Among these, we recollect concerts at the Schleswig-Holstein-Festival, the European Musical Festival in Stuttgart, the Organ Meeting in Vienna, the Organ-Meeting in Nuremberg, the Berlin Bach-Meeting, the Ansbach Bach-Meeting, the Ancient-Music-Festival in Berlin, Regensburg, and Herne, the Brühl Castle concerts, and many other Bach-Meetings.

Moreover, her career brought her to many countries beside Europe, such as Israel, Japan, and the U.S.A. She is often invited as a scholar to the most important conventions and centres of study and research. In 1994, she successfully made her debut into the liederistic world, accompanying Peter Schreier. Among her performances’ partners, some prestigious names emerge, such as Andreas Staier, with whom she often performed compositions for two harpsichords, Christopher Huntgeburth, Ulla Bundies, and Mary Utiger. Since the autumn of 2003, she is a member of the “Munchner Cammer-Music” and she often plays with the Italian ensemble “Zefiro.”

Since 1992, Christine Schornsheim has been invited as a member of the jury in several international competitions of harpsichord and fortepiano.

From 1988 to 1992, Christine Schornsheim held the chair at the Musical and Theatrical Academy of Leipzig. In November 1992, she became a teacher of harpsichord and fortepiano in the same institute, where she gave a significant contribution to the development of antique music. In 2002 she left this job and became a teacher at the Musical and Theatrical Academy of Munich.

There are a lot of highly renowned recordings of Christine Schornsheim. For instance, the variazioni Goldberg, J.S. Bach’s rare compositions for harpsichord, and W.A. Mozart’s several concerts for fortepiano. Moreover, she performed, for an unpublished recording, Ludwig van Beethoven’s compositions for piano and flute, with Christoph Huntgeburth, specialist of baroque transverse flute. Many other recordings followed, where she stood out in the practice of both the Basso Continuo and the harpsichord, as well as the organ and the chamber music.        

In 1999, she won the ECHO Award for classical music, as a recognition of her record of the three concerts for harpsichord of C.P.E. Bach, W.FR. Bach, and J.Chr. Bach (published by Capriccio.) In the spring of 2005, the complete recording of F. Joseph Haydn’s compositions for fortepiano came out, which has been also performed for Capriccio with five different original instruments. This significant performance earned her the Critic’s German Award, the Diaposon d’Or and the ECHO Classical Period Award.

Afterward, she obtained a great success with the record, for Harmonica Mundi France, of W.A. Mozart’s compositions. This recording, performed with Andreas Staier on the original vis-à-vis “Stein” fortepiano, of 1777, earned her the Diaposon d’Or, in 2007. She got a similar success with the CD of P.A.F Boely’s compositions for piano, performed on two original Erards (Phoenix Edition.) In 2009, Capriccio published all of F. Joseph Haydn’s concerts, performed with the Neuen Düsseldorfer Hofmusik. Another recording sees her with the young Japanese violinist Mayumi Hirasaki, in the enactment of Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions with a romantic elaboration (GENUIN.) Later, she made a further recording with Capriccio, which presents a box set with the whole Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (vol. I+II.) This recording has been performed on the original Rueckers harpsichord of the Colmar Museum.