Rafał Blechacz
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON SIGNS EXCLUSIVE CONTRACT WITH CHOPIN COMPETITION WINNER
Hamburg, September 2006. Deutsche Grammophon is pleased to announce the signing of an exclusive contract with 21-year-old pianist Rafał Blechacz, recent winner of the 15th Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw. He was praised by the distinguished pianist and Warsaw Chopin Competition jury member John O’Conor as “one of the greatest artists I have had a chance to hear in my entire life”. Rafał Blechacz has since performed to extraordinary critical acclaim at summer music festivals in Verbier, Dortmund and La Roque d’Anthéron. His first Deutsche Grammophon CD will feature works by Chopin.
Michael Lang, President of Deutsche Grammophon, says: “Rafał Blechacz is one of those rare young artists who comes along and brings a fresh voice and character to classical music. Deutsche Grammophon is proud of its tradition of developing young recording artists and we are delighted to welcome him to our musical family.”
Born in Nakło nad Notecią on 30 June 1985, Rafał Blechacz was five when he began learning the piano at a local music centre. At the age of eight he enrolled at Bydgoszcz’s Artur Rubinstein Music School. Between 1996 and 1999 he won the top awards at a number of Polish national piano competitions. He is currently completing his studies at the Feliks Nowowiejski Music Academy in Bydgoszcz.
In 2002 he took second prize at the Artur Rubinstein “in memoriam” International Competition for Young Pianists in Bydgoszcz, the following year was co-winner of the International Piano Competition in Hamamatsu, Japan, and in 2004 won the top award at the International Piano Competition in Morocco.
This succession of competition victories culminated in October 2005, when Rafał Blechacz was unanimously awarded First Prize at the Warsaw Chopin Competition (no Second Prize was given that year). In addition to the main prize he also took home the three special prizes: the Polish Radio Award for “Best Performance of the Mazurkas”, the Polish Chopin Society Award for “Best Polonaise Performance”, and the Warsaw Philharmonic Award for “Best Concerto Performance”. Additionally, he won the prize founded by Krystian Zimerman for “Best Sonata Performance”.
The Warsaw jury were unstinting in their acclaim of Blechacz; Andrzej Jasiñski, jury secretary (and the sole teacher of Zimerman), said: “I had a first-prize candidate right after the first stage [of the competition] and he was Rafał Blechacz. We had many great virtuosos in this competition, but apart from virtuosity we need to hear the right approach to Chopin’s music here. This is what Rafał has got.”
Since his triumph at the Chopin Competition, Rafał Blechacz has been in demand for recitals and concerto appearances in the musical capitals of Europe and the Far East. In 2006 he has already appeared at Warsaw’s Philharmonic Hall and at the Tchaikovsky Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev. After standing in at short notice for Lang Lang at Verbier’s Salle Médran in July 2006, the English critic Julian Sykes, writing in Le Temps, observed:
“Chopin fits him like a glove. Much like Krystian Zimerman, he projects this music with staggering naturalness. His control of line, his nobility of phrasing, his capacity for tailing off a melody without affectation – all of these mark him with special distinction.”
Upcoming engagements include twelve recitals in the major concert halls of Japan, and concerts at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Munich’s Herkulessaal, London’s Wigmore Hall, Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional, and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels.
Yet, though sought after now all over the world, this thoughtful artist insists on maintaining a schedule that will always allow him to do full justice to the music he performs. In an interview, Rafał Blechacz said:
“I choose concerts and arrange their programmes in such a way that they offer freshness and joy. In my interpretations, I try not to be influenced by other pianists, because this could upset the internal balance one should have achieved after a great deal of preparation. Another very important thing for me is to expand my repertoire, and that also takes time and preparation. I prefer to work on a piece at home alone, in peace and quiet, only to ‘show’ it later to the public.”
接下去几个月会在欧洲和日本有不少演出:
http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/ontour/index.htms?termCol1=a.NAME&term1=Rafal+Blechacz
> 我来回应