Tobias Willi was born in 1976 and studied at the University of Music in Basel from 1997 to 2003. While there, he earned pedagogy and performing degrees in organ (both with distinction) under Guy Bovet. He also studied piano with Heinz Björlin and Jürg Wyttenbach, from whom he received his piano pedagogy degree with distinction. Between the autumn of 2003 and the summer of 2005, Willi continued his organ studies through the “Cycle de Perfectionement” program at the Conservatoire National Supérieur et de Danse de Paris with Olivier Latry and Michel Bouvard.
Tobias Willi has been chief organist at the Johanneskirche in Zurich since January, 2015. He also concertizes regularly as an organ soloist in Switzerland and abroad, and has appeared at the Lucerne Festival (2004), Toulouse-les-Orgues (2010), Présences Festival in Paris (2005), Feldkirch Festival (2009), RadioKulturhaus in Vienna (2010), Festival di Treviso (2012), Notre-Dame in Paris, Fulda Cathedral, Freiburg Minster, and the Cathedrals of Bourges and Monaco. He also appeared in Haifa and Jerusalem in 2012, Bordeaux and Riga in 2015, and the Mariinsky Concert Hall in St. Petersburg in 2016.
His repertoire focuses above all on music from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. There have been many premieres of works by composers such as Jean-Pierre Leguay, Michel Roth, Valéry Aubertin, Raphaël Gogniat, Michael Schneider, Mattias Steinauer, Hans-Jürg Meier, Jürg Wyttenbach, and Junghae Lee. He has formed a duo with the Viennese saxophonist Lars Mlekusch, and together they devote their energies especially to contemporary music. In this context they also commission works from young composers. In the 2014-15 concert season, Tobias Willi presented the complete organ works of Olivier Messiaen in six concerts.
Other artistic endeavours include interdisciplinary work and connect organ music with film, poetry, etc. Tobias Willi has held a position as professor of organ performance and improvisation at the Zurich University of the Arts since February, 2010.
