Vanessa Porter

Vanessa Porter is one of the most versatile percussionists internationally and is in demand for various projects, concert formats and programmes. As a soloist she combines current works with improvisation, electronics and the performing arts and collaborates with renowned composers such as Georges Aperghis, Zeynep Gedizlioglu, Jennifer Walshe or Ben-Amots Ofer. Using voice, body percussion, bells or vibraphone: In her latest programme folie à deux she creates hypnotic soundscapes between soft beauty and eruptive power.

In the season 2025/26, Vanessa Porter will be a guest at the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, BASF Ludwigshafen, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as well as at the Rheingau Musik Festival. Together with the Staatskapelle Halle and percussionist Emil Kuyumcuyan she will play Rebecca Saunder’s Void for percussion duo and orchestra under the baton of Fabrice Bollon. Furthermore, she will premiere the new solo piece Éndropía by Samir Odeh-Tamimi at ECLAT Festival Stuttgart 2026.

She is invited to festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Ultraschall Festival Berlin, Kasseler Musiktage, ECLAT Stuttgart, Podium Festival Esslingen, Heidelberger Frühling, Schlossmediale Werdenberg, Osterfestival Tirol, Eclats Concerts Fribourg and the Kalima Festival Switzerland. Through her close collaboration with the Goethe-Institute, she regularly has been giving workshops and concerts in the USA and was invited to Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Costa Rica on a 4-week South American tour with the Percussion Duo Porter.

Due to her many years of experience in the field of education, she collaborates with various universities and academies, such as the International Summer Academy of Music and held workshops at the Sibelius Academy Helsinki or the University of Birmingham within the framework of the WorldPercussionGroup. In 2017–2018, she taught percussion at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart. Since 2024 Vanessa Porter has been a professor of percussion at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe.

Vanessa Porter is 1st prize winner of the August-Everding Music Competition Munich, the International Percussion Competition Luxembourg, the Music Creative Award Lindau and the PercussiveArt Contest Italy, received the German scholarship and was a scholarship holder of the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg and the German Music Competition.

After studying at the Royal College of Music in London (with David Hockings) and the Musikhochschule in Lübeck (with Johannes Fischer), Vanessa Porter completed her master’s degree at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart (with Marta Klimasara, Klaus Dreher and Jürgen Spitschka) with top marks in summer 2018.