Dejan Lazić is a Croatian pianist, conductor, and composer admired for his fresh interpretations of piano repertoire. He is also in high demand as a recording artist and appears on over 20 albums as an accompanist, soloist, and chamber music collaborator. He was born in Zagreb in 1977 to a musical family, and he spent his childhood in Salzburg. He attended the Mozarteum, where he studied composition, clarinet, and piano. He became inspired to compose after seeing Miloš Forman’s 1984 film Amadeus. In 1991, Lazić made his recording debut as both a clarinetist and a pianist, on the album Dejan Lazić & Zagreb Soloists play Mozart. It was also around this time when he began performing with his friends and frequent collaborators Benjamin Schmid, Zen Hu, Johannes Erkes, and Enrico Bronzi. After completing his education at the Mozarteum, Lazić began touring, and he appeared with many major ensembles such as the Chicago Symphony, the NHK Symphony, and the Netherlands Philharmonic. Other recordings from this period include Sharon Bezaly’s Israeli Connection and the solo piano albums Chopin Retrospection and Retrospection: W.A. Mozart, KV 1-574. In addition to his successes in the studio and concert hall, Lazić also revealed his talent as a composer in the 2000s. His Istrian Dance for two violins was featured on the album China Connection with Zen Hu and Ning Feng, and he recorded his piano concerto arrangement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto No. 3, Op. 77 with both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Additionally, he won the 2009 ECHO Klassik Award for the album Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18. Lazić’s oeuvre grew considerably in the 2010s, with works for piano, orchestra, and several cadenzas for piano concertos by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. He also recorded albums of concertos and solo piano repertoire on the Channel Classics, Sony Classical, and Onyx Classics labels. His collaboration with Schmid, Hu, Erkes, and Bronzi on the 2020 album Mozart: Piano Quartets in G minor K478 & E flat major K493; Rondo Concertante K333 earned the OPUS Klassik award in 2021. Later that year, he was artist in residence for the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, and in 2022 he premiered his Kaleidoscope at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival with Sol Gabetta, Andreas Ottensamer, and Zen Hu. His 2023 releases include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 23 & 14; Rondo Concertante (arr. Lazic), and Istrian Rhapsody, which features premiere recordings of Lazić’s original compositions. ~ RJ Lambert, Rovi

Dejan Lazić

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