Friedrich Lips was born in 1948 to parents of German origin in the city of
Yemanzhelinsk (
Chelyabinsk district). In 1967 he finished his education at the "Mikhail Glinka" music school in
Magnitogorsk in the class of E. Kudinov (bayan, conducting). He then went to Moscow to the Gnesin State Institute for Music Education, where he was a master student of Sergey Kolobkov and took his exams in his class in 1972 (bayan, conducting) and completed his
postgraduate education in 1974. From 1971 onwards he himself worked as a teacher at the Gnesin Institute. In 1980 he was appointed
lecturer and in 1989 professor. Since 1996 he has been head of the Folk Instruments Department - to which the
bayan accordion is assigned - at the institute, which has since been renamed the Russian Academy of Music. As a visiting professor, he taught at institutions and academies in
Irun, Spain;
Groningen, Netherlands;
Royal Academy of Music,
London;
Tianjin,
Shanghai,
China. As a guest lecturer, he is internationally active in seminars, master classes and educational courses and also acted as a juror in music competitions. In 1989 he founded the international music festival "Bayan and Bayanists" in Moscow, which he chairs as Artistic Director, and initiated the Moscow Music Prize "Silver Disc" for bayan/accordion soloists. During his work as a teacher, many musicians emerged from his classes who have since become award winners of national and international competitions, concert musicians and educators. As a performing artist, Friedrich Lips was first prize winner at the international music competition in
Klingenthal (GDR) in 1969. In 1970 he was signed to the state Soviet concert agency Goskoncert. This is how he started his career as a concert virtuoso and chamber musician. In the following 30 years of uninterrupted concert activity, concerts took him to the US, Canada, China, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Norway, Denmark, to concert halls (including the Great Hall of the
Moscow Conservatory,
Concertgebouw Amsterdam,
Suntory Hall Tokyo,
Lincoln Center New York, JF
Kennedy Center Washington, to the musicians
Gidon Kremer, Vladimir Igolinsky,
Yo-Yo Ma, Vladimir Tonkha, Mark Pekarski and to the composers Sergey Berinsky, Mikhail Bronner,
Alexander Kholminov, Evgeny Derbenko,
Edison Denisov,
Sofia Gubaidulina, Efrem Podgaits,
Alfred Schnittke,
Vladislav Zolotaryov, Kirill Volkov, Roman Ledenyov, Tatyana Sergeyeva, Vladimir Ryabov. == Significance ==