Bechstein!
Pianists on Bechstein.
Ah Ruem Ahn
Ah Ruem Ahn was born in Suwon (South Korea) in 1984. Having played the piano since the age of six, she studied at Kaywon Highschool of Arts under Professor Yoo-Kyung Han from 1999 to 2002 before obtaining a Bachelor’s degree at Yonsei University under Professor Bong-Ae Shin. She moved to Germany in 2006 to pursue her studies at Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media under Elena Margolina-Hait, then at Detmold University of Music under Professor Bob Versteegh from 2009, where she finished her degree two years later. She rounded off her education by attending master classes conducted by Andras Schiff, Menahem Pressler and Bernd Goetzke.
Ah Ruem Ahn has won numerous competitions (Deutscher Pianistenpreis, three special prizes at the Grand Prix Animato in Paris, first prize in the 14th International Piano Competition “Stefano Marizza”, first prize and three special prizes in the International Smetana Piano Competition, first prize for the piano and two special prizes in the International Paul Hindemith Competition and first prize in the 9th Münchner Klavierpodium der Jugend).
On the back of these successes, she embarked on a career in Europe and Asia, performing as a soloist with major orchestras (Dortmunder Philharmoniker, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc, Plzeňská Filharmonie, Yonsei Symphony and Kaywon Symphony). Ah Ruem Ahn has been teaching the piano and répétiteur skills at Detmold University of Music since 2011.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Pierre-Laurent Aimard Widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time and as a uniquely significant interpreter of piano repertoire from every age, Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys an internationally celebrated career. In recognition of a life devoted to the service of music he was awarded the prestigious 2017 International Ernest von Siemens Music Prize.
Born in Lyon in 1957, Pierre-Laurent Aimard studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Yvonne Loriod and in London with Maria Curcio. Early career landmarks included winning first prize in the 1973 Messiaen Competition at the age of 16 and being appointed, three years later, by Pierre Boulez to become the Ensemble Intercontemporain’s first solo pianist. Aimard performs throughout the world each season with major orchestras under conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Peter Eötvös, Sir Simon Rattle and Vladimir Jurowski. He has been invited to curate, direct and perform in a number of residencies, with projects at Carnegie Hall, New York’s Lincoln Center, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Berlin’s Philharmonie, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, the Lucerne Festival, Mozarteum Salzburg, Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Tanglewood Festival and London’s Southbank Centre. Aimard was the Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 2009 to 2016; his final season was marked by a performance of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux with the concerts programmed from dawn to midnight. In 2017 sees the start of his three year tenure as Artist-in-Residence at Southbank Centre.
Aimard has had close collaborations with many leading composers including Kurtág, Stockhausen, Carter, Boulez and George Benjamin. Recent seasons have included the world premieres of Harrison Birtwistle’s piano concerto Responses: Sweet disorder and the carefully careless, as well as Carter’s last piece Epigrams for piano, cello and violin, which was written for Pierre-Laurent. Through his professorship at the Hochschule Köln as well as numerous series of concert lectures and workshops worldwide, he sheds an inspiring and very personal light on music from all periods. During the 2008/09 season Aimard was an Associate Professor at the College de France, Paris and he is a member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste. He was the recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist Award in spring 2005 and was named ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ by Musical America in 2007. In 2015 he launched a major online resource centred on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music with filmed masterclasses and performances of the Études and other works by Ligeti in collaboration with Klavier-Festival Ruhr. (www.explorethescore.org).
Pierre-Laurent has made many highly successful recordings. His first Deutsche Grammophon release, Bach’s Art of Fugue, received both the Diapason d’Or and Choc du Monde de la Musique awards, debuted at No.1 on Billboard’s classical chart and topped iTunes’ classical album download chart. In recent years Pierre-Laurent has been honoured with ECHO Klassik Awards, most recently in 2009 for his recording of solo piano pieces, ‘Hommage à Messiaen’, a Grammy award in 2005 for his recording of Ives’ Concord Sonata and Songs and he was also presented with Germany’s Schallplattenkritik Honorary Prize in 2009. Further releases for DG – ‘The Liszt Project’ in 2011 and Debussy Préludes in 2012 – were joined by a new recording of Bach’s Das wohltemperierte Klavier Book 1 in 2014. He has now signed an exclusive contract with Pentatone records, his first recording being the complete Catalogue d’oiseaux for release in Spring 2018.
Dmitry Ablogin
Dmitry Ablogin studied with Vladimir Tropp at the Gnessin Academy in Moscow, from which he graduated with honors in 2012. He continued his education in Germany, studying fortepiano with Jesper B. Christensen at the Hochschule für Musik und DarstellendeKunst in Frankfurt.
Laureate of the 1st International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments in Warsaw (2018), Dmitry Ablogin has won prizes in numerous piano competitions, including the Nikolai Rubinstein in Paris, Vera Lotar-Shevchenko in Novosibirsk, German Piano Open in Hanover and Musica Antiqua in Bruges.
Dmitry has performed in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Russia, France, at the Miami International Piano Festival in the US and the renowned “Chopin and his Europe” festival in Warsaw, Poland. In October 2021 he won the 10th International German Piano Award and made his debut at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, performing Piano Concerto No. 4 by Ludwig van Beethoven.
In addition to performing around the world, Dmitry Ablogin teaches piano and fortepiano at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt.
KIT ARMSTRONG
Kit Armstrong was born in Los Angeles in 1992. He started composing at the age of five and had first piano lessons soon after that. At the same time, he also proved to be very talented in mathematics, natural sciences and foreign languages. Armstrong performs regularly in the greatest concert halls (Musikverein, Vienna; Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; Royal Festival Hall, London; Phiharmonie, Berlin; Laeiszhalle, Hamburg; Philharmonie, Cologne; NHK Auditorium, Tokyo; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels), playing with such outstanding directors as Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, Manfred Honeck, Kent Nagano, Jonathan Nott and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
A chamber music aficionado, Kit Armstrong performs regularly with Andrej Bielow (violin) and Adrian Brendel (cello). He has also begun accompanying singers.
A versatile artist, Armstrong is also famous as a composer: New York’s ASCAP Foundation has repeatedly awarded him the Morton Gould Young Composers Award, while several institutions (including the Leipzig Gewandhaus, the Winterthur Musikkollegium and the Frankfurt Bachkonzerte) commissioned compositions that have been published by Edition Peters. He also composed “Stop Laughing, We’re Rehearsing”, a work for piano trio that has been recorded on CD.
Kit Armstrong performed at the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Stuttgarter Liederhalle, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the Parco della Musica in Rom and many other concert halls on C. Bechstein.
SALEEM ASHKAR
Palestinian-Israeli pianist Saleem Ashkar was born 1976 in Nazareth and studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at the University of Music in Hanover. Saleem Ashkar often performs as guest of the most important orchestras in Israel, especially the Israel Philharmonic and Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. At the age of 22, he debuted at Carnegie Hall in New York. Among the conductors with whom he regularly plays are Daniel Barenboim, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Lawrence Foster, Zubin Mehta and Sebastian Weigle. In Mozart year 2006, he was heard at the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonica under Riccardo Muti. Further engagements have led Saleem Abboud Ashkar to the well-known Norway Risør-Festival, Ravinia with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, France to the Menton Festival, Konzerthausorchester Berlin and Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2007, Ashkar performed for the first time with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In the 2008/09 season he played a concert again with the Gewandhausorchestra by invitation from Riccardo Chailly. A celebrated anthem-like recital CD was published in 2005 by EMI Classics.
A dedicated recitalist and chamber musician, Saleem’s recent focus has been a complete Beethoven Sonata Cycle – which he recently completed at the Konzerthaus Berlin, in Prague, his home country of Israel and Duisberg. He has appeared in series at venues including the Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Mozarteum Salzburg, Musikverein Vienna, Conservatorio Guiseppe Verdi Milan, Florence. Further ahead, he performs a wide range of recital repertoire, including Debussy and Messiaen at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and Beethoven, Brahms and Schoenberg at the Beethoven-Haus Bonn. He makes his International Piano Series debut at the Southbank Centre in spring 2020.
Saleem records frequently for Decca: in the last two years he has released two recordings of Beethoven Piano Sonatas (coinciding with his complete cycle), and previously he has released both of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concertos with the Gewandhausorchester with Chailly and Beethoven’s First and Fourth Piano Concertos with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester with Ivor Bolton.
“Many thanks to a grand piano with such a rich tone and quick-reaction attack,” Ashkar wrote after a concert in Berlin about the C. Bechstein concert grand piano.
VLADIMIR ASHKENAZY
Back to overview Vladimir Ashkenazy, born July 6, 1937 in Gorki, today called Nischni Nowgorod, is a Russian pianist and conductor with an Iceland citizenship as of 1972. Since 1978, he has lived in Switzerland. As graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, Vladimir Ashkenazy won second prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw in 1955, first prize at the Concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels in 1956, as well as at the International Tschaikowsky Competition in Moscow in 1962. His recording activity is more extensive than for hardly any other pianist. As of 1978 Vladimir Ashkenazy also began to work as conductor. He was conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, German Symphony Orchestra Berlin and Czech Republic Philharmonic. Vladimir Ashkenazy was patron of the 2006 International Carl Bechstein Competition Ruhr.
