Rafał Blechacz
“It was an exhilarating two hours. It was immediately clear from the first sweet, liquid notes of the Bach Partita No. 1, BWV 825, that Blechacz is a student only in the deeper sense: a musician in service to the music, searching its depths, exploring its meaning and probing its possibilities. He plays with humility and absolute clarity”. Washington Post
In 2005, uncontested, Rafał Blechacz won all prizes of the prestigious 15th Frédéric Chopin International Piano Competition: the Polish Radio Prize for the best performance of mazurkas, Frédéric Chopin Society Prize for the best performance of a polonaise, National Philharmonic of Poland Prize for the best concerto performance and Krystian Zimerman’s sponsored Prize for the best performance of a sonata. In 2006, Blechacz signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon becoming the second only Polish artist, after Krystian Zimerman, to have enlisted under the prestigious label.
The victory of October 2005 saw Rafał Blechacz begin an international career taking him to many of the worlds famous concert halls, among them the Berlin Philharmonie, Herkulessaal Munich, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Konzerthaus Vienna, Tonhalle Zurich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Salle Pleyel Paris, Palais-des-Beaux-Arts Brussels, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Caecilia Rome, Avery Fisher Hall New York, and London’s Wigmore Hall to name but a few.
In 2011/12 Rafał Blechacz performs recitals across Europe including Berlin’s Philharmonie, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Munich, Hannover, Stuttgart, and Zurich’s Tonhalle, Geneva’s Victoria Hall, Lyon, Brussels and the Salle Pleyel, Paris. In concerto, he makes his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra performing Chopin No. 2 under the direction of Jaap van Zweden. He returns to the orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Caecilia with Andrés Orozco-Estrada, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala and Fabio Luisi, Danish National Symphony with Alexander Polianichko, and Orquesta Nacional de España with Josep Pons. Returning to Paris, he is soloist with Sinfonia Varsovia in the Salle Pleyel.
The most renowned music festivals including Salzburg, Verbier, La Roque-d’Anthéron, Klavier-Festival Ruhr in Germany and Gilmore Festival in the USA continue inviting Blechacz to return, as he will do in 2012 giving recitals both at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and La Roque d’Anthéron festivals.
Rafał Blechacz’s debut CD for DG of Chopin Preludes won the Platinum Record status in his native Poland, a German Echo Klassik and French Diapason D’or award. Honoring the Chopin year in 2010, he recorded both concerti with the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the baton of Jerzy Semkow. It won the „Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik” and after its release in Poland, quickly reached double Platinum Record status. A solo disc of Bach is to be released in 2012, followed by a disc of works of Debussy and Szymanowski.
Born in 1985, Blechacz began his piano lessons at the age of five continuing his piano education in the Artur Rubinstein State School of Music in Bydgoszcz. In May 2007, he graduated from the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz, the piano class of Professor Katarzyna Popowa-Zydroń. In July 2010, he received the prestigious Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana (Italy), awarded annually by an international jury of music critics to young musicians for their outstanding artistic achievements.
SEASON 2011/2012
