A prize-winner of both national and international competitions, the Czech-German pianist Béla Hartmann has established a reputation for lively and individual interpretations of a wide repertoire, ranging from Giles Farnaby and Rameau to Luciano Berio.  Schubert and Beethoven form the core of this extensive range, and he was both prize-winner in the International Schubert Competition, Dortmund (1997), and winner of the Beethoven Medal of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe (1995). In 2000, he was a semi-finalist at the Leeds International Piano Competition.

Béla Hartmann studied with Elisso Virssaladze and Vadim Suchanov in Munich, and with John Bingham at Trinity College of Music, London, where he was the recipient of several college prizes, as well as winning an award from the Tillett Trust in 1996. Whilst at Trinity, he was selected to represent the college at the launch of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe. He has given recitals at prestigious venues in several European cities, as well as the U.S.A., where he appeared at the Carnegie Recital Hall, New York. In London he has played in venues such as the Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, St James Piccadilly and St John's Smith Square. Béla Hartmann has performed widely for music societies in Wales, Scotland and England, and Germany (Gasteig, Munich), the Czech Republic (Estate Theatre, Prague) and Switzerland, and has given highly acclaimed concerto performances around the UK of concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak, Brahms and Prokofiev. His playing has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as well as on German radio, and a recent recital was transmitted live on Luxemburg radio. 

Throughout 2005 Béla Hartmann will be performing the complete piano sonatas and dances by Schubert, in a series of eight recitals at Steinway Hall, London. Past Schubert concerts have included recitals at the South Bank, London, the Schubertiade, Luxemburg and for the Schubert Institute and the Schubert Society. Béla Hartmann has also performed widely on period instruments, most recently playing a programme of Schubert works on an 1815 Walter instrument at the Cobbe Collection, Hatchlands Park.