Born in Austria, Christopher Hinterhuber studied with Alex Papenberg, Rudolf Kehrer, Lazar Berman, Avo Kouyoumdjian and Heinz Medjimorec at the University for Music and performing Arts in Vienna and the Accademia “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola, Italy acquiring additional artistic input from such artists as Oleg Maisenberg and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

He has won numerous top prizes and honors at the international piano competitions in Leipzig (Bach), Saarbrücken (Bach), Pretoria (Unisa), Zurich (Geza Anda) and Vienna (Beethoven) among others.
As “Rising Star” 2002/03, he performed with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja in the international series at the Carnegie Hall, New York and in all important musical centers in Europe.

The last few years have seen him play in major festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein- Festival, Styriarte Graz, Carinthischer Sommer Ossiach, Mozartwoche Salzburg, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Prague Autumn; under such conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Kirill Karabits, Jakub Hrusa, Bertrand de Billy, Sylvain Cambreling, Beat Furrer, Howard Griffiths, Yakov Kreizberg, Christian Arming, Adrian Leaper, Andrés Orozco Estrada, Dennis Russell Davies, Ari Rasilainen, Hubert Soudant, Alfred Eschwé and Bruno Weil; with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Klangforum in Vienna, the Wiener Virtuosen, the Vienna and Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the MDR Orchestra Leipzig, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, the Philharmonia Prague, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra among others.

A special project was the sound recording (Schubert, Rachmaninov, Schönberg) and filming (his hands) for the french-austrian movie “La pianiste” based on a novel by Elfriede Jelinek and directed by Michael Haneke, which was awarded the Great Prize of the Jury in Cannes in 2001.

Beside his activities as soloist, chamber music is an important part of his musical life, for example as member since 2012 of the renowned Altenberg Piano Trio, which has its own series in the Musikverein in Vienna; from 2017 until 2021 he played also in acclaimed Piano Quintet “Philharmonic Five” with members of the Vienna Philharmonic, the ensemble released their first CD-recording on Sony Classical in January 2018.
He gives regularly masterclasses worldwide, is artistic director of the Osaka Music Competition in Japan and professor for piano and deputy head of the piano department at the University for Music and performing Arts in Vienna.