Freddy Kempf piano

"Kempf took to Rachmaninov's massively sculpted piano textures with all the sangfroid of youth and the precision of a top-line artist"

NZ Herald

"His delicacy of touch generated real pianistic poetry"

London Evening Standard

"Kempf has the maturity and musicality with which to harness his gifts to artistic ends. He has the fearless exuberance of youth. He is prepared to take risks, a readiness that brings spontaneous combustion to his playing; but he has sensitivity, too"

The Telegraph

Freddy Kempf is one of today's most successful pianists, performing to sell-out audiences all over the world. He has built a unique reputation both as an explosive and physical performer not afraid to take risks as well as a serious, sensitive and profoundly musical artist.

Born in London in 1977, Freddy began piano lessons at the age of four. He came to national prominence in 1992 when he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition following a memorable performance of Rachmaninov Paganini Variations. It was perhaps his award of third prize in the 1998 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow that rapidly established his international career. That he did not win the first prize provoked protests from the audience and an outcry in the Russian press, which proclaimed him "the hero of the competition" and his unprecedented popularity with Russian audiences since then has been reflected in several sold-out concerts and numerous television broadcasts.

Many international debuts followed, and Freddy has since travelled all over the world to take up a wide range of invitations, from opening the Shanghai Concert Hall in October 2004, to recording Chopin's Etudes for DVD in a Chateau near Paris for BBC Television.

Freddy's collaborations in the past have included such eminent ensembles and conductors as the Philharmonia Orchestra under Sir Andrew Davis and Kurt Sanderling, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Daniele Gatti and Matthias Bamert, City of Birmingham Symphony/Oramo, La Scala Philharmonic/Chailly, St Petersburg Philharmonic/Temirkanov, Russian State Symphony/Sinaisky, Dresden Symphony/Herbig, Seattle Symphony/Schwarz, San Francisco Symphony/Tortelier, Philadelphia Orchestra/Sawallisch, NHK Symphony/Simonov, European Union Youth Orchestra/Ashkenazy, Prague Philharmonia/Belohlavek, the Residentie Orkest/Jaarvi, Vancouver Symphony/Tovey, Luxembourg Philharmonic/Krivine and the Sao Paolo State Symphony/Kalmar.

Last season saw Freddy on a Japanese tour with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, also joining them later in the season at London's Festival Hall with conductor Andrew Litton. He toured the UK with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko, performed with the English Chamber Orchestra and undertook several projects with the European Union Chamber Orchestra. A favourite with audiences worldwide, Freddy worked last season with the KBS Symphony Orchestra under Bramwell Tovey and with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. He is a frequent visitor to Australasia, appearing most recently with the Tasmanian Symphony, Adelaide Symphony and Queensland orchestras, and on tour with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra who immediately re-invited him. Freddy is renowned not only for his extremely broad repertoire but also his great stamina; last season, he performed seven concerts in as many days with the Orchestra Regionale Toscana, performing both of Chopin's piano concertos in each one.

The current season includes concerts with the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, the Westdeutsche Sinfonia and a return to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. In the United States, following previous successes with the Oregon, Seattle and Detroit Symphony orchestras among others, Freddy appears at the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra's Tchaikovsky Festival, performing both concertos under Sebastian Lang-Lessing. Other highlights include a UK tour with the Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, a return to the RTE Symphony in Dublin, and engagements with the Adelaide Symphony and the Sydney Symphony under Thomas Dausgaard, representing Freddy's debut at the Sydney Opera House.

In addition to his collaborations with many leading conductors, Freddy embarks next season on a new play/direct project, in which he performs a cycle of all of Beethoven's piano concertos at some of the UK's major venues with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, of which Charles Dutoit is Artistic Director.

A committed recitalist, Freddy has built up dedicated audiences world-wide appearing at London's Barbican Centre, Dublin's National Concert Hall, Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, the Sage Gateshead, St David's Hall in Cardiff, Munich's Herkulessaal, Hamburg's Musikhalle, Grande Teatro di Verona and Zurich's Tonhalle. Freddy has also performed at the ABC Southbank in Brisbane, the Symphony Hall in Osaka, and at some of Russia's most important venues including the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and St. Petersburg's Philharmonic Hall. He ended last season with an all-Chopin recital at the Cheltenham Festival.

This season Freddy performs an all-Beethoven recital in A Coruna, Spain, and returns to Milan Conservatorio's Sala Verdi. His UK recitals take in venues such as London's Cadogan Hall and Birmingham's Symphony Hall, where he plays the entire Goldberg Variations by Bach. Also this season he embarks on an extensive Japanese recital tour to include Tokyo's Suntory Hall and gives a recital at the City Hall in Sydney.

Freddy records exclusively for BIS Records, his most recent release being Prokofiev's Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3 with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Litton, which was nominated for the prestigious Gramophone Concerto award and described by the associated magazine as "A masterful Prokofievian pair". The current season sees the release of a new solo disc. In July 2010, Freddy took up an invitation to participate in a recording project featuring a new work 'Genesis Symphony' by Tolga Kashif, performed with the London Symphony Orchestra.

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Visit Freddy Kempf at http://www.freddy-kempf.com

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