Konrad Beikircher

Konrad Beikircher is a German-language Kabarett artist, musician, and author born on December 22, 1945 in Bruneck (Brunico) in South Tyrol, Italy. Based in Bonn since the 1960s, he is widely regarded as the chronicler and self-styled inventor of the Rhineland, performing in Rhenish dialect with the warmth of an outsider who fell in love with his adopted home. After almost six decades in Germany and more than 40 years on stage, he is currently performing his farewell tour.

Beikircher grew up in South Tyrol as the youngest son of the local electricity company director, learning piano at age four and violin at eight. He left for Vienna in 1964 to study psychology and journalism and transferred to the University of Bonn in 1965, where he completed his diploma in psychology and studied musicology and philosophy. From 1971 he worked as a prison psychologist at JVA Siegburg; in 1986, on the verge of promotion, he left the civil service to perform full time. His Kabarett work centers on the Rhineland character, dialect, carnival, church, and food, but he is equally renowned for his musical Kabarett: concert guides Andante Spumante and Scherzo Furioso, opera guides Palazzo Bajazzo and Bohème Suprême, and his Beethoven book Der Ludwig - jetzt mal so gesehen, in which he brings classical music to general audiences with humor and scholarly depth. His honors include the Morenhovener Lupe (1988), the Friedestrompreis (2002), the Großer Kulturpreis of the Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Rheinland (2005), the Cologne Literature Prize (2006), and the Bundesverdienstkreuz 1. Klasse (Federal Cross of Merit First Class) in 2012.

Konrad Beikircher is performing his farewell tour with the programs Arrivederci, Hommage, and Konrad sagt Arrivederci, with around 29 dates scheduled between May 16 and December 21, 2026 in Bonn-Bad Godesberg, Schweinheim, Cologne, Meerbusch, Dormagen, Wesseling, Monheim, and other Rhineland venues. The full schedule is available on his official website beikircher.de. His books and audio recordings, including the Beethoven volume Der Ludwig - jetzt mal so gesehen, are published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch and WortArt.