Niklas Jahn

Niklas Jahn began studying with Prof. Hans-Jürgen Kaiser at the Mainz University of Music while still a pre-college student. He went on to study Church Music (B.Mus.) in Mainz with Prof. Gerhard Gnann, Prof. Hans-Jürgen Kaiser and Prof. Ralf Otto, followed by master’s degrees in Church Music, Organ Improvisation and Choral Conducting at the Freiburg University of Music, where his teachers included Prof. Matthias Maierhofer, Prof. David Franke, Prof. Vincent Dubois and Prof. Frank Markowitsch. He also completed advanced postgraduate degrees in Organ Performance and Organ Improvisation there, graduating with distinction in both.

He has won numerous prizes at internationally renowned organ competitions, including first prizes at the St Albans International Organ Competition (Improvisation), the International Organ Competition Musashino-Tokyo, which included a recording contract with Naxos, and the International Organ Competition of the City of Korschenbroich. He was also a finalist at the International Organ Improvisation Competition in Haarlem. His other honours include the Cultural Promotion Award of the Rotary Club Mainz. He has received scholarships from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes) and the Helene Rosenberg Foundation.

Alongside an extensive concert career that has taken him to numerous European countries and Japan, Niklas Jahn has worked as a church musician in Mainz and Freiburg, as assistant organist at the cathedrals of Fulda, Mainz and Freiburg, and as assistant conductor and répétiteur for various concert choirs. He has taught organ at the universities of music in Freiburg, Saarbrücken, Weimar and Dresden, and most recently in Düsseldorf, where he was appointed Acting Professor of Organ at the Robert Schumann University of Music.

On 1 December 2024 – exactly 288 years to the day after Johann Sebastian Bach gave a celebrated organ recital on the then newly consecrated Silbermann organ – Niklas Jahn was appointed Organist of the Frauenkirche Dresden.