Cyprien KATSARIS
[Retour]Cyprien Katsaris, French-Cypriot pianist and composer, was born in Marseilles in 1951. He first began to play the piano at the age of four, in Cameroon where he spent his childhood, with Marie-Gabrielle Louwerse.
A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire where he studied piano, he won the International Young Interpreters Rostrum-Unesco (1977), the First Prize in the International Cziffra Competition (1974) and he was the only western-European prize-winner at the 1972 International Queen Elisabeth Competition of Belguim. He was also awarded the Albert Roussel Foundation Prize (1970) and the Alex de Vries Foundation Prize (1972)
He gave his first public concert in Paris, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées as a "knight" of the youth competition "The Kingdom of Music", he performed the Hungarian Fantasy by Franz Liszt, with the Orchestre Symphonique d'Ile-de-France conducted by René-Pierre Chouteau.
His international career includes performances with the world's greatest orchestras, most notably the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra Washington DC, Detroit Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Toronot Symphony, The Philharmonia (London), The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, The Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, The NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo), Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orhcestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the City of Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra.
He has collaborated with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Eugene Ormandy, Mistslav Rostropovich, Sir Simon Rattle, Kurt Masur, Christoph von Dohnanyi, CHarles Dutoit, Antal Dorati, Ivan Fischer, Eliahu Inbal, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Kent Nagano, James Conlon, Sir Charles Mackerras, Rudolf Barshai, Sandor Végh, Vladimir Fedoseyev...and Karl Münchinger.
Cyprien Katsaris has made prize-winning records for Teldec, Sony Classical, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, BMG-RCA, Decca, Pavane, and now on his own label, Piano 21.
He has been a member of the jury of the following International Competitions: Chopin (Warsaw 1990), Liszt (Utrecht 1996), Vendôme Prize (Paris 2000), and Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud-Ville de Paris (2001).
He has also conducted masterclasses at the Mannes College of Music, in New York City, the Unviersity of Toronto, the Salzburg Mozarteum, The Arts Academy in Mexico, The Academy of Performing Arts in Hong-Kong, and the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. He was appointed in 1977 Artistic Director of the International Festival of Echternach in Luxembourg.
Cyprien Katsaris has been honoured and recognized by the following awards: "Knight of Merit of Cameroon" (1975), "Artist of Unesco for Peace'(1997), "Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters" (France 2000). He also received the "Vermeil Medal of the City of Paris"(2001).
www.cyprienkatsaris.net
