Lars Vogt

Lars Vogt enjoyed a meteoric rise after capturing second prize at the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition. He managed to straddle two worlds in the process, that of soloist/recitalist and that of chamber player. He regularly appeared with front-rank orchestras across the globe and on the recital stages at major venues while founding a chamber music festival and making numerous recordings devoted to chamber works. Vogt's taste in repertory was unusually broad, taking in not only the German sphere (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) but also a veritable potpourri (Dvorák, Saint-Saëns, Stravinsky) as well as contemporary composers (Erkki-Sven Tüür, Volker David Kirchner). He possessed a powerful technique and a chameleonic interpretive persona that together allowed him to capture the subtleties and negotiate the challenges presented by this vast array of composers. Vogt was born in the German town of Düren on September 8, 1970. He studied piano in Aachen with Ruth Weiss and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. After his victory at the 1990 Leeds Competition, Vogt launched his international career, touring throughout Europe and eventually the Americas and Asia. His first recording was an acclaimed 1992 EMI album of works by Haydn, Schubert, Brahms, and Lachenmann. A Haydn piano sonata release followed in 1994, as well as several others later in the decade. In the new century, Vogt made a spate of successful recordings, many in the chamber genre. The impetus for much of his chamber activity dates to the founding of the Spannungen Festival in 1998, where he served as artistic director for a time. Vogt recorded numerous albums with musicians appearing at the event, held every June in Heimbach. He collaborated with violinist Christian Tetzlaff in the Brahms sonatas, with clarinetist Sabine Meyer in Brahms and Berg works, and with cellist Boris Pergamenschikov in Brahms and Schumann fare. In the early 2000s, Vogt developed a close relationship with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Simon Rattle, becoming the group's first-ever pianist-in-residence. In that capacity, he appeared in five concerts. Vogt secured his first orchestral directorship post in 2015 when he became the music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia. He remained in this position until 2020 but continued his association with the orchestra as principal artistic partner. That year, he became the music director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris. In 2021, Vogt was diagnosed with cancer and was open about his condition, describing how he continued to play piano throughout -- even during treatments -- and found comfort in the solo piano music of Brahms. The following year, Vogt joined his daughter, Isabelle, for the album Schumann, R. Strauss: Melodramas, and he led the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris from the keyboard on a recording of Mendelssohn's works for piano and orchestra. Vogt died of cancer on September 5, 2022, three days before his 52nd birthday. He is survived by his wife, violinist Anna Reszniak, and three children. ~ Robert Cummings, Rovi