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The Ukrainian violinist, Valeriy Sokolov, is one of the most outstanding young artists of his generation. Working regularly with the world’s leading orchestras, he has enjoyed collaborations with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Cleveland Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Rotterdam Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, NAC Ottawa, Orchestre National de France and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. He works frequently with conductors including Vladimir Ashkenazy, David Zinman, Susanna Malkki, Andris Nelsons, Peter Oundjian, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Vasily Petrenko, Herbert Soudant & Juraj Valcuha
He has appeared in many major European festivals including Verbier and Lockenhaus. He regularly performs in the major concert halls around the world with highlights including regular Sunday Morning series appearances in Theatre du Chatelet as well as at the Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, Mariinsky Theatre, Prinzregenten Theatre in Munich and Musikverein in Vienna.
Exclusively signed with Erato records (formerly EMI Classics) Valeriy has developed a strong and varied catalogue of recordings, releasing Enescu’s Sonata No. 3 for them in 2009. His first concerto DVD was of the Sibelius Violin Concerto under Vladimir Ashkenazy and with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Bruno Monsaingeon’s film “un violon dans l’âme / Natural Born Fiddler”, a record of Valeriy’s recital in Toulouse in 2004, received much praise from the critics and continues to be frequently broadcast on ARTE TV. In 2010 Valeriy recorded violin concertos of Bartok and Tchaikovsky under the direction of David Zinman and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. Since 2016 Valeriy teaches regularly at the International Masterclasses in Schaffhausen (Switzerland).
Valeriy has recently given performances with the St Petersburg Philharmonic, NDR Hamburg Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia Orchestra, Singapore Symphony & the Bournemouth Symphony amongst others. He has also recently completed a successful tour of a chamber music project with Lisa Batiashvili and Gautier Capuçon throughout Europe including venues in Paris, Vienna, Cologne, Amsterdam and London. Highlights of the 2017-18 season include debuts at the Lucerne Festival and with the MDR Leipzig, as well as Valeriy’s subscription debut with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. This season also sees Valeriy return to the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, MDR Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk as well as the Concertgebouw with the Noord Nederlands Orkest. Valeriy will begin his role as Artist-in-Residence with the Weimar Staatskapelle, in which he will embark on an extensive US tour with the orchestra and its Music Director, Kirill Karabits.
Born in 1986 in Kharkov, Ukraine, Valeriy is one of the leading violinists to come out of Ukraine in the past twenty years. Valeriy left his native country age 13 to study with Natalia Boyarskaya at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England. He continued his studies with Felix Andrievsky, Mark Lubotsky, Ana Chumachenko, Gidon Kremer and Boris Kushnir. He was the first prize winner of the 2005 George Enescu International Violin Competition in Bucharest, Romania
Valeriy Sokolov has had a violin concerto (2014 ) and a sonata (2017) written for and dedicated to him by Ukraine’s most significant composer Yevhen Stankovich.
Nelson Goerner is one of today’s greatest classical pianists. He is heralded for his performances of the highest art and poetry, while at the same time possessing exhilarating and masterful conviction.
In the 2019-20 season Nelson Goerner will give recitals on some of the world’s most important stages, including Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, London’s Wigmore Hall, Brussels’ BOZAR and Toulouse’s Cloitre des Jacobins, and give concerto appearances with La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra and Alain Altinoglu, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Myung-Whun Chung, and the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester under Lawrence Foster.
Nelson Goerner has performed with many of today’s major orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Hallé Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia and NHK Symphony Orchestra, and with several of today’s leading conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Philippe Herreweghe, Neeme Järvi, Sir Mark Elder, Paavo Järvi, Vassily Sinaisky, Jonathan Nott, Fabio Luisi and Esa-Pekka Salonen. His festival appearances include today’s most prestigious engagements, including Salzburg Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron, La Grange de Meslay, Edinburgh International Festival, Festival de Verbier, La Folle Journée (Nantes and Tokyo), Schleswig-Holstein, Warsaw’s ‘Chopin and his Europe’ and the BBC Proms.
A keen chamber musician, Nelson Goerner has collaborated with artists such as Martha Argerich (in repertoire for two pianos), Janine Jansen, Steven Isserlis and Gary Hoffman. The 2019-20 season will include a series of duo recitals with Sol Gabetta in Italy and Renaud Capuçon in Switzerland.
Nelson Goerner has a strong relationship with the Mozarteum Argentino in Buenos Aires and enjoys a long association with the Chopin Institute in Warsaw, where he is a member of the artistic advisory committee. He has released several albums of unusual repertoire on the Institute’s own record label, the latest, in 2019, featuring works by Godowski and Paderewski, including the latter’s monumental Variations and Fugue op.23. His recording of the Chopin Ballades and Nocturnes was recognised with a Diapason d’Or.
Nelson Goerner records predominantly for Alpha Classics and his discography for them includes works by Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Schumann, Fauré and Franck. Many of Goerner’s albums have been named “reference” recordings. Accolades include: Diapason d’Or of the Year for his recording of Debussy; BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Month for his album of works by Schumann; Choc de Classica and Diapason d’Or for his Chopin Preludes album; plus resounding critical acclaim for his recording of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata Op 106.
Details of Nelson Goerner’s complete discography can be found here.
Nelson Goerner was born in San Pedro, Argentina, in 1969. After studying in Argentina with Jorge Garrubba, Juan Carlos Arabian and Carmen Scalcione, he was awarded First Prize in the Franz Liszt Competition in Buenos Aires in 1986. This led to a scholarship to work with Maria Tipo at the Geneva Conservatoire, and in 1990 Nelson Goerner won the First Prize at the Geneva Competition.
Nelson Goerner lives in Switzerland with his wife and son. He is a proud and active supporter of the humanitarian organisation, Ammala.
Adam Laloum received an international recognition by winning 1st Prize at the prestigious Clara Haskil Piano Competition. In 2017, he won the Victoires de la Musique in the category “Instrumentalist of the Year”.
Adam has the opportunity to perform in concerto with some prestigious orchestras and conductors such as the Mariinsky Orchestra/Valery Gergiev, the Orchestre de Paris/Cornelius Meister, the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Nicholas Collon at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne/Joshua Weilerstein at the Festival de Saint-Denis, the Orchestre National de Belgique/Hugh Wolf, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Sir Roger Norrington, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo/Alain Altinoglu, the Orchestre National de Lyon/Gabor Takacs-Nagy, the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège/John Neschling, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Jonathan Nott, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg/Jesus Lopez-Cobos, the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester/James Gaffigan, the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse/Joseph Swensen, the KBS Symphony Orchestra/Yoël Levy, the Orchestre National de Bordeaux/Jaime Martin, the WDR Orchestra of Stuttgart, etc.
Adam Laloum is the guest of the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Wigmore Hall, Herkulessaal de Munich, Tonhalle Zürich, Auditorium du Louvre, Piano à Lyon, Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, Grand Théâtre d’Avignon, Société Chopin de Bern, Palais des Beaux-arts de Bruxelles, Bilbao, Japon. He performs at the Klavier-Festival-Ruhr, Verbier Festival, Lucerne Festival, Festival de la Roque d’Anthéron, SWR Schwetzinger Festspiele, Festival de la Chaise-Dieu, Folles Journées de Nantes, Festival de Colmar, Menton Festival, Festival du Périgord Noir, Festival Piano aux Jacobins, Lille Piano Festival, Festival de Pâques de Deauville, Zermatt Festival, Bad Kissingen Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, etc…
After a first album with Brahms works (Mirare), Adam Laloum recorded another one dedicated to Schumann: Humoresque op.20 and the Sonata n°1, op.11. This recording has received the « Diapason d’or of the year 2014 », the « Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros », « ffff » of Télérama and 5 stars by Fono Forum in Germany. Adam Laloum then released a CD devoted to Schumann/Schubert (Mirare), and the Two Brahms piano Concertos with the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Kazuki Yamada (Sony Music Worldwide, 2018). His last recording, released in 2020 for the label Harmonia Mundi and dedicated to two Schubert Sonatas, has been acclaimed by critics.
A very fine and passionate chamber music partner Adam Laloum founded a piano trio – Trio les Esprits – with the cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière and the violinist Mi-sa Yang. Their last recording (Sony Music Worldwide) has received The Strad « Recommends ». His chamber music recording (Brahms both clarinet Sonatas and Trio with clarinet) with clarinettist Raphaël Sévère and cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière also received a Diapason d’or and ffff in Télérama. With the violist Lise Berthaud, he released an album devoted to Schumann, Schubert and Brahms, which received a Diapason d’or.
He is the artistic director of the festival “Les Pages Musicales de Lagrasse” since 2015, a festival dedicated to the chamber music repertoire.
Adam Laloum starts the piano at the age of 10 and makes his musical studies at the Toulouse Conservatory, before starting at the Paris National Conservatoire in 2002 in the class of Michel Béroff. During his scholarship, Adam met and attended master classes of such personalities as Dmitri Bashkirov or Paul Badura-Skoda. He received his Diploma in June 2006 and continued at the Lyon CNSM in Géry Moutier’s class. He then joined the class of Evgeni Koroliov in Hamburg who is himself 1st Prize Clara Haskil 1977.
Precise vocal control, clear diction, intelligent musicality and an ability to get to the heart of everything he sings all ensure Christoph Prégardien’s place among the world’s foremost lyric tenors. Especially revered as a Lieder singer, he kicks off the 2019/2020 season with concerts at the Schubertiade Hohenems and the Oxford Lieder Festival. He then performs in the US on tour with pianist Julius Drake, before the pair give joint recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall and in Madrid. In the spring he will tour with Le Concert Lorrain, followed by recitals in Hong Kong with Roger Vignoles and in Zurich with Hartmut Höll and Udo Samel, among others, with additional appearances at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele and at the Konserthuset in Stockholm.
Christoph Prégardien regularly appears with renowned orchestras the world over. He has worked with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, as well as the Boston and San Francisco Symphonies, along with conductors such as Barenboim, Metzmacher and Thielemann. His wide orchestral repertoire includes the great baroque, classical and Romantic oratorios and passions, as well as works from the 17th and 20th centuries. In opera, his roles have included, among others, Tamino, Almaviva, Fenton (Falstaff), Don Ottavio, Titus, Ulisse and Idomeneo.
His extensive experience singing the Evangelist roles, together with his close working relationship with conductors such as Nagano, Chailly, Herreweghe, Harnoncourt, Luisi and Gardiner have provided him with the perfect basis for his increasing work conducting the works of Bach. Following the success of his conducting debut in 2012, leading Le Concert Lorrain and the Nederlands Kammerkoor in Bach’s St. John’s Passion, he has also become in-demand as a conductor of this repertoire. In 2015 he led Le Concert Lorrain and the Balthasar-Neumann Choir, this time in the St. Matthew’s Passion, and in the following years returned to lead Le Concert Lorrain and the Dresdner Kammerchor on tour with Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. In 2019 he made his debut leading a symphony orchestra, conducting the Duisburg Philharmonic in works including Mozart’s Requiem, and also led the Collegium Vocale Gent at a celebration concert for Philippe Herreweghe’s 70th birthday; together with the ensemble he will take part in a major European tour of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in December.
The singer has recorded much of his repertoire on a discography of over 150 records, which have received awards such as the Orphée d’Or of the Académie du Disque Lyrique, the Edison Award, the Cannes Classical Award and the Diapason d’Or. For the label Challenge Classics he has recorded Schubert’s Schwanengesang with Andreas Staier and Die schöne Müllerin with Michael Gees – selected as Editor’s Choice by Gramophone magazine and awarded the MIDEM Record of the Year – followed by Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch with Julia Kleiter, Between Life and Death, Wanderer and the Grammy-nominated Winterreise disc – all with Michael Gees – as well as Father and Son with his son Julian Prégardien. His Schubert CD Poetisches Tagebuch (with Julius Drake) was awarded the German Critics’ Award 2016. His most recent CD releases include A Matter of Heart – songs for voice, horn and piano with Olivier Darbellay and Michael Gees – as well as a recording of passion cantatas by Telemann and Bach with the Vox Orchester for Sony (where he appears as a baritone for the first time), along with Auf den Flügeln des Gesanges with Cyprien Katsaris for Challenge, featuring Romantic songs and their piano transcriptions. In autumn 2019, also for Challenge, a new recording of Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Wagner’s Wesendonck Liedern (with Michael Gees) will be released.
Teaching remains an important part of Christoph Prégardien’s musical life. Following many years at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Zurich, he gives masterclasses for young singers the world over and since 2004 has been a professor at the Academy of Music in Cologne.
Behzod Abduraimov performs with renowned orchestras worldwide including the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, San Francisco Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris and Concertgebouworkest and with prestigious conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Lorenzo Viotti, James Gaffigan, Jakub Hrůša, Santtu-Matias Rouvali and Gustavo Dudamel.
In recital Behzod has appeared a number of times at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and has recently been presented by Chicago Symphony, Kölner Philharmonie and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. Festival appearances include Aspen, Verbier, Rheingau, La Roque Antheron and Lucerne Festivals.
Forthcoming engagements include Chicago Symphony under Lahav Shani, returns to the Concertgebouworkest, St Petersburgh Philharmonic, Seattle and Dallas Symphonies as well as Oslo and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras. Behzod will be returning to the Barbican Hall, 92nd Street Y, Spivey Hall, Vancouver Recital Series as well as The Conrad Center, La Jolla.
2020 saw the release of two recordings: Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Lucerne Symphony Orchestra under James Gaffigan, recorded on Rachmaninov’s own piano from Villa Senar for Sony Classical and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.3 with Concertgebouworkest under Valery Gergiev, for the RCO live label. Both recordings were nominated for the 2020 Opus Klassik awards in multiple categories. A film of his BBC Proms debut in 2016, with the Münchner Philharmoniker under Valery Gergiev, was released as a DVD in 2018.His 2012 debut CD of Liszt, Saint-Saëns and Prokofiev for Decca won the Choc de Classica and Diapason Découverte and his first concerto disc for the label featured Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.3 and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No.1.
Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1990, Behzod began the piano aged five as a pupil of Tamara Popovich at Uspensky State Central Lyceum in Tashkent. In 2009, he won First Prize at the London International Piano Competition with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.3. He studied with Stanislav Ioudenitch at the International Center for Music at Park University, Missouri, where he is Artist-in-Residence.
Joaquin Achúcarro has been described by the Chicago Sun Times as “The Consummate Artist”. His impeccable and modelic artistic career has earned him a reputation of the highest degree both nationally and internationally.
Born in Bilbao, he won in his student days a number of International Prizes in Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland, but it was his victory in England at the 1959 Liverpool International Competition (one year after Zubin Mehta had won it as conductor) and the rave reviews in the London papers after his debut with the London Symphony in the Royal Festival Hall that marked the beginning of his career.
Since then, Achúcarro has been enjoying an uninterrupted international career touring 61 countries performing in venues such as Avery Fisher Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Kennedy Center, Musikverein, Royal Albert Hall, Salle Gaveau, Salle Pleyel, Teatro alla Scala, Suntory Hall, Sydney Opera House, Teatro Colón and The Barbican both playing recitals and as soloist with over two hundred different orchestras including: Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, La Scala of Milan, London Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony, Sta Cecilia di Roma, RTE Ireland, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia, Royal Scottish, City of Birmingham, Hallé, National de France, Yomiuri, Tokyo Philharmonic, Tokyo Symphony, RIAS Berlin, Tonkunstler Wien, Nacional de Chile, de Mexico, de Colombia, de Venezuela and, of course, every Spanish Orchestra, under more than 350 conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Sir Adrian Boult, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Colin Davis, Zubin Mehta, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Seiji Ozawa and Sir Simon Rattle.
He was named “Artist for Peace” in 2000 by the UNESCO in Paris in recognition of “his extraordinary artistic achievement”. He is Accademico ad Honorem of the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and in his home country, Achúcarro has received the highest honours in the Arts: the Gold Medal of Fine Arts, The National Award for Music and in 2003, King Juan Carlos of Spain bestowed upon him the Great Cross of Civil Merit.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) named the miniplanet 2131 under Achucarro´s name as a tribute to his successful international career.
His DVD/BluRay “ACHUCARRO plays BRAHMS”, with Brahms n.2 piano concerto under Sir Colin Davis and London Symphony (Opus Arte), obtained 5 stars all over Europe, being “Editor´s Choice” of CLASSIC FM Magazine and rated “Outstanding” by the INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW (both in London), immediately climbing to the top of the Bestsellers and Hot New Releases charts in amazon.com
A few months later, Euroarts released Achucarro´s new DVD/BluRay ”FALLA and FRIENDS” playing Falla Nights in the Garden of Spain with Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle at the Philarmonie Hall in Berlin, also received with great acclaim.
Last year, Sony has reissued his famous GOYESCAS by Granados and his Falla CD with London Symphony and conductor Eduardo Mata.
Achúcarro rewrote and recorded also for SONY his own revision of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Piano Concerto. He has prize-winning recordings of de Falla, Granados, Ravel and Brahms with BMG-RCA, Claves and Ensayo. Other recordings include music by Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, Beethoven, Debussy, Bartok, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Turina and Hermann.
Since August 1989 he holds the Tate Chair at Southern Methodist University in Dallas adjusting his teaching periods to his busy concert schedule.
In 2008, the “Joaquin Achucarro Foundation” was created by a group of individuals and institutions from the Dallas community “to perpetuate his artistic and teaching legacy” and to help young pianists at the outset of their careers.
Born on 23 July 1944 in Lisbon, Maria João Pires gave her first public performance at the age of 4 and began her studies of music and piano with Campos Coelho and Francine Benoît, continuing later in Germany, with Rosl Schmid and Karl Engel. In addition to her concerts, she has made recordings for Erato for fifteen years and Deutsche Grammophon for twenty years.
Since the 1970s, she has devoted herself to reflecting the influence of art in life, community and education, trying to discover new ways of establishing this way of thinking in society. She has searched for new ways which, respecting the development of individuals and cultures, encourage the sharing of ideas.
In 1999, she created the Centre for the Belgais Centre for the Study of the Arts in Portugal. Maria João Pires regularly offers interdisciplinary workshops for professional musicians and music lovers. In the Belgais concert hall concerts and recordings regularly take place. In future these will be shared with the international digital community (pay and non-pay).
In 2012, in Belgium, she initiated two complementary projects; the Partitura Choirs, a project which creates and develops choirs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds as in Belgium the „Hesperos Choir, and the Partitura Workshops. All of the Partitura projects have the aim to create an altruistic dynamic between artists of different generations by proposing an alternative in a world too often focused on competitiveness. This philosophy is being spread worldwide at Partitura projects and workshops.
Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason is in great demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She offers eclectic and interesting repertoire, with her recital programmes encompassing music from Haydn and Mozart, via Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms, to Gershwin and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, whose piano concerto featured on Isata’s chart-topping debut recording, as in Prokofiev and Dohnányi.
In 2022/23 Isata steps into her role as Artist in Residence with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, performing three concerti across the season at London’s Cadogan Hall. She returns to Dortmund’s Konzerthaus as one of their Junge Wilde artists and makes multiple visits to both the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Other highlights of the season include recital performances at the Barbican, Queen Elizabeth, and Wigmore halls in London, the Philharmonie Berlin, National Concert Hall Dublin, Perth Concert Hall, Prinzregententheater Munich, and the Sala São Paulo. As concerto soloist, Isata appears with the Orchestra of Opera North, New World Symphony Miami, City of Birmingham Symphony, Duisburg Philharmonic, Barcelona Symphony, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Orchestra of Norwegian Opera. She returns to the Baltimore Symphony and recently made her long-awaited debut with the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl.
Isata is a Decca Classics recording artist. Her 2019 album, “Romance – the Piano Music of Clara Schumann”, entered the UK classical charts at No. 1, Gramophone magazine extolling the recording as “one of the most charming and engaging debuts”. This was followed in 2021 by “Summertime”, an album of 20th-century American repertoire featuring Samuel Barber’s Piano Sonata and a world premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Impromptu in B minor. In November 2021, along with her cellist brother, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Isata released her first duo album entitled “Muse”, beautifully demonstrating the siblings’ musicality and refined skill borne from years of playing and performing together.
She was an ECHO Rising Star in 21/22, performing in many of Europe’s finest halls and is also the recipient of the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award and an Opus Klassik award for best young artist.
Born in St Petersburg, Olga Peretyatko began her career in the children’s choir of the Mariinsky Theatre, before studies in Berlin and training with the Opera Studio at the Staatsoper Hamburg. Her victory in the Operalia competition propelled her to the forefront of the stage, a position she has held ever since. The soprano is now one of the most fervent representatives of bel canto in the world, but also a personality with unerring adaptability and intense acting, making the most eminent opera programmes a delight. A Franco Abbiati Prize, notable roles in Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte and Anna Bolena, as well as an enlightened interpretation of the Four Women (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) have confirmed her international reputation in recent years.
With his extraordinary pianistic talents, Fazil Say has been touching audiences and critics alike for more than twenty-five years, in a way that has become rare in the increasingly materialistic and elaborately organised classical music world. Concerts with this artist are something different. They are more direct, more open, more exciting; in short, they go straight to the heart. Which is exactly what the composer Aribert Reimann thought in 1986 when, during a visit to Ankara, he had the opportunity, more or less by chance, to appreciate the playing of the sixteen-year-old pianist. He immediately asked the American pianist David Levine, who was accompanying him on the trip, to come to the city’s conservatory, using the now much-quoted words: ‘You absolutely must hear him, this boy plays like a devil.’
Fazıl Say had his first piano lessons from Mithat Fenmen, who had himself studied with Alfred Cortot in Paris. Perhaps sensing just how talented his pupil was, Fenmen asked the boy to improvise every day on themes to do with his daily life before going on to complete his essential piano exercises and studies. This contact with free creative processes and forms are seen as the source of the immense improvisatory talent and the aesthetic outlook that make Fazıl Say the pianist and composer he is today. He has been commissioned to write music for, among others, the Salzburger Festspiele, the WDR and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg- Vorpommern, the Konzerthaus Wien, the Dresdner Philharmonie, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the BBC. His oeuvre includes four symphonies, two oratorios, various solo concertos and numerous works for piano and chamber music.
From 1987 onwards, Fazıl Say fine-tuned his skills as a classical pianist with David Levine, first at the Musikhochschule “Robert Schumann” in Düsseldorf and later in Berlin. In addition, he regularly attended master classes with Menahem Pressler. His outstanding technique very quickly enabled him to master the so-called warhorses of the repertoire with masterful ease. It is precisely this blend of refinement (in Bach, Haydn and Mozart) and virtuoso brilliance in the works of Liszt, Mussorgsky and Beethoven that gained him victory at the Young Concert Artists international competition in New York in 1994. Since then he has played with all of the renowned American and European orchestras and numerous leading conductors, building up a multifaceted repertoire ranging from Bach, through the Viennese Classics (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) and the Romantics, right up to contemporary music, including his own piano compositions.
Guest appearances have taken Fazıl Say to countless countries on all five continents; the French newspaper “Le Figaro” called him ‘a genius’. He also performs chamber music regularly: for many years he was part of a fantastic duo with the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Other notable collaborators include Maxim Vengerov, the Minetti Quartet, Nicolas Altstaedt and Marianne Crebassa.
From 2005 to 2010, he was artist in residence at the Konzerthaus Dortmund; during the 2010/11 season he held the same position at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Fazıl Say was also a focal point of the programme of the Schleswig- Holstein Musik Festival in the summer of 2011. There have been further residencies and Fazıl Say festivals in Paris, Tokyo, Meran, Hamburg, and Istanbul. During the 2012/13 season Fazıl Say was the artist in residence at the hr- Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt and at the Rheingau Musik Festival 2013, where he was honoured with the Rheingau Musik Preis. In April 2015 Fazıl Say gave a successful concert with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, New York, followed by a tour with concerts throughout Europe. In 2014 he was artist in residence at the Bodenseefestival, where he played 14 concerts. During their 2015/2016 season the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Zürcher Kammerorchester invited him to be their Artist in Residence, he spent three seasons as Artist in Residence at the Festival der Nationen in Bad Wörishofen and was Composer in Residence at the Dresdner Philharmonie in 2018/19.
In December 2016, Fazıl Say was awarded the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights, Peace, Freedom, Poverty Reduction and Inclusion, in Bonn. In the autumn of 2017, he was awarded the Music Prize of the city of Duisburg.
His recordings of works by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Gershwin and Stravinsky with Teldec Classics as well as Mussorgsky, Beethoven and his own works with the label naïve have been highly praised by critics and won several prizes, including three ECHO Klassik Awards. In 2014, his recording of Beethoven’s piano concerto No. 3 (with hr- Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt / Gianandrea Noseda) and Beethoven’s sonatas op. 111 and op. 27/2 Moonlight was released, as well as the CD ‘Say plays Say’, featuring his compositions for piano. Since 2016 Fazıl Say is an exclusive Warner Classics artist. In the autumn of 2016, his recording of all of Mozart sonatas was released on that label, for which, in 2017, Fazıl Say received his fourth ECHO Klassik award. Together with Nicolas Altstaedt, he recorded the album “4 Cities” (2017). In autumn 2017 Warner Classics released the Nocturnes Frédéric Chopins and the album “Secrets” with French songs, which he recorded together with Marianne Crebassa and which won the Gramophone Classical Music Award in 2018. His 2018 album is dedicated to Debussy and Satie, whilst with his most recent recording “Troy Sonata – Fazıl Say Plays Say” he presents only his own works.