Catherine Rückwardt

Catherine Rückwardt (née Beckmann; born 7 April 1960) is a German pianist and conductor. She was Generalmusikdirektorin of the Staatstheater Mainz from 2001 to 2011, and has worked freelance since that time.

Career Born Catherine Beckmann in Los Angeles, the daughter of the conductor and pianist Irvin Beckmann and the singer Judith Beckmann, Rückwardt studied violin at the Musikhochschule Lübeck from 1975. She studied piano from 1981 at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, graduating in 1984. She further studied voice, accompaniment of Lieder (Liedbegleitung), and conducting, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Hermann Prey, among others. In 1995, she took a conducting class with Helmuth Rilling at the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart.