Profile

“The meteoric success of pianist Freddy Kempf makes it is easy to forget he is in his mid-20s. If it is true that an artist's finest years come with age, then the mind boggles at the possibilities.” The Guardian, July 2003

Freddy Kempf was born in London in 1977 and came to national prominence in 1992 when he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition following a memorable performance of Rachmaninov Paganini Variations. However his first public appearance was at the age of four in a church in Folkestone, England.

It was perhaps his award of third prize in the 1998 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow that established his international career. For him NOT to have won the first prize provoked protests from the audience and an outcry in the Russian press, which proclaimed him "the hero of the competition" and his unprecedented popularity with Russian audiences has been reflected in several sold-out concerts and numerous television broadcasts. His triumphant return visit to the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire the following year for solo and concerto appearances prompted the headline "Young pianist conquers Moscow" in the International Herald Tribune.

His most recent concerts have included appearances at New York's 92nd Street “Y”, Salzburg Mozarteum, Cheltenham Festival, La Roque d'Antheron Festival, Milan Conservatoire, Hamburg's Musikhalle and Zurich Tonhalle and his debut tour of Japan (which included solo and orchestral concerts culminating in a recital at Tokyo's Suntory Hall that was broadcast on radio and television). Of a recent Wigmore Hall recital, The Daily Telegraph wrote, “Kempf has the maturity and musicality with which to harness his gifts to artistic ends. He has the fearless exuberance of youth. He is prepared to take risks, a readiness that brings spontaneous combustion to his playing; but he has sensitivity, too.”

In recent seasons performances include the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Royal Philharmonic and Daniele Gatti; this extraordinary achievement was recognized by universal acclaim by critics and audiences alike. He also made his debut on subscription with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Wolfgang Sawallisch. Other engagements included City of Birmingham Symphony and Sakari Oramo, St Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov and a tour of Japan with the Dresden Symphony with Gunter Herbig, and he performed at the Musikverein in Vienna.

A committed recitalist Freddy has played at London’s Wigmore Hall, Gergiev’s Prokofiev Festival in Rotterdam, at the Piano Jacobins Festival in Toulouse and in Milan and Florence. He has played concertos with the Royal Scottish National, Spanish National, Berlin Symphony, Moscow State Symphony, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony and Sao Paulo State Symphony.

Last season included performances with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Vassily Sinaisky, the English Chamber Orchestra/Sir Colin Davis, the Residentie Orkest/Neeme Jarvi, Detroit Symphony Orchestra and he returned to Japan for two major tours. Upcoming invitations include engagements with the Tonhalle Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Freddy has recently participated in an eleven date tour with the Bavarian Philharmonic Orchestra touring all the major concert venues in the UK. He presented two concertos at the Manchester Piano Festival and performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2006.

He records exclusively for BIS Records, for whom he has recorded recital discs of Beethoven (x2), Chopin (x2), Liszt, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Schumann and in March 2006 Freddy released his first Bach recording. In 2001, he was voted Best Young British Classical Performer in the prestigious Classical Brit Awards.

Date Last Edited: 2nd October 2006 (IMG Artists)