Cyprien Katsaris

Cyprien Katsaris, the French-Cypriot pianist and composer, was born in Marseilles in 1951. A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, he won the International Young Interpreters Rostrum-UNESCO (Bratislava 1977), the First Prize in the International Cziffra Competition (Versailles 1974) and he was the only western-European prize-winner at the 1972 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium International Competition. His major international career includes performances with the world’s greatest orchestras: The Berlin Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra ... He has collaborated with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Kurt Masur, Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Simon Rattle, Mstislav Rostropovich, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Eugene Ormandy … After having recorded extensively for the majors, C. Katsaris has created his own label, PIANO 21, in 2001. On 17 October 1999, the New York concertgoers offered him a standing ovation in Carnegie Hall for his recital dedicated to Frédéric Chopin, performed on the day of his 150th death Anniversary. In March 2006 Cyprien Katsaris was the first pianist ever to give masterclasses in Franz Liszt’s house in Weimar since Liszt, who taught there for the very last time in 1886, the year of his death. On 10 July 2014 he performed in the first concert at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.