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 guest lecturer, he is internationally active in seminars, master classes and educational courses[3] and also acted as a juror in music competitions.
As a performing artist, Friedrich Lips was first prize winner at the international music competition in Klingenthal (GDR) in 1969.
In the following 30 years of uninterrupted concert activity, concerts took him to the US,[5] 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,[6] JF Kennedy Center Washington, to the musicians Gidon Kremer,[7] 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,[8] Efrem Podgaits, Alfred Schnittke, Vladislav Zolotaryov,[9] Kirill Volkov, Roman Ledenyov, Tatyana Sergeyeva, Vladimir Ryabov.
He has worked in chamber music ensembles and has given concerts with orchestras under the direction of Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Spivakov, Yuri Bashmet, Oleg Agarkov, Timur Mynbayev, Yuri Nikolayevsky,Yūji Takahashi, Luca Pfaff, Lev Markis, Dmitry Liss, and Valery Gergiev.