 He completed a course at Salzburg's Mozarteum under professor Matthias Seidel at the age of 21, earning a degree of Master of Arts.During his studies he was awarded the Franz Kossak Prize and a prize of the Austrian Ministry of Culture and also won the special prize for the interpretation of contemporary music at the International Music Competition in Templin.In the early 1990s he began attending the master classes of Leo Brouwer, Eliot Fisk and David Tannenbaum.