Benjamin Engeli comes from a family of musicians and started his musical education on various instruments at an early age. Only when he was fifteen did he decide to take his first regular piano lessons, studying with Adrian Oetiker with whom he continued to work until he completed his first diploma at the Musikhochschule Basel, Switzerland.

As of October 2000, he studied Homero Francesch at the College of Music in Zurich. His lessons with Lazar Berman, Andrzej Jasinski, Maurizio Pollini and András Schiff were also of major importance for his creative development.

Benjamin Engeli has won prizes at many music competitions and has received various scholarships and support funding. His concert activities have taken him to most European countries as well as to Australia, India, North and South America. In 2009 he received the cultural prize of his home state, the canton of Thurgau.

In 2003 he became a founding member of the Tecchler Trio, which is one of today’s leading chamber music ensembles. Being the 1st Prize winner at the International ARD Music Competition in Munich in 2007, they have  performed in venues such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall London, Tchaikovsky Conservatory Moscow, Herkulessaal Munich, Konzerthaus Vienna or Tonhalle Zurich and have made numerous radio- and CD-recordings. He is also one out of the 4 pianists of the Gershwin Piano Quartet; they have recently been touring China and the United Arab Emirates and have a busy schedule for the coming years.

Benjamin Engeli is a faculty member for chamber music of the Musikhochschule Basel.

Named “Instrumentalist of the Year 1997” at the prestigious Victoires de la Musique award ceremony in Paris, the Swiss-French flutist Emmanuel Pahud is one of today’s most exciting and adventurous musicians. He was born in Geneva in January 1970 and started to study music at the age of six. He graduated in 1990 with the Premier Prix from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, after which he continued his studies with Aurele Nicolet.

He has won first prize in many major International Music Competitions like Kobe in 1989 and Duino in 1988, then won eight out of the twelve special prizes at the Concours de Genève in 1992. He took the Soloists Prize in the World-wide French-speaking Community Radio Awards, and the European Council’s Juventus Prize. He is also a laureate of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation and of the International Tribune for Musicians of UNESCO.

At the age of 22, Emmanuel Pahud was appointed Principal Flute of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Claudio Abbado, a post to which he returned in 2002 after an 18-month sabbatical when he taught the Virtuosity Class at the Geneva Conservatoire and he has recently been voted onto the Media Vorstand of the BPO.

Emmanuel appears regularly at leading festivals throughout Europe, the USA and the Far East. He has appeared as soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, Zurich Tonhalle, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Mariinski, Minnesota Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Washington National Symphony, NHK Symphony, and Scottish Chamber orchestras. He’s collaborated with conductors such as Abbado, Rattle, Zinman, Maazel, Gergiev, Gardiner, Harding, Järvi, Rostropovich and Perlman.

In 2008-09 Emmanuel performed with, amongst others, the Cincinnati Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Mahler and Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestras as well as has recorded with the Rotterdam Symphony Orchestra and Yannick Nezet-Seguin and has given performances of the Elliot Carter Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim. He will also continue to perform three newly commissioned flute concerts by Matthias Pintscher, Michael Jarrell and Marc-André Dalbavie, all of which have been recorded for EMI.

He is a dedicated chamber musician and regularly gives recital tours with pianists such as Eric Le Sage, Yefim Bronfman and Hélène Grimaud, as well as jazzing with Jacky Terrasson. He will perform recitals with guitarist Christian Rivet and will tour with Trevor Pinnock across the United States, Japan and South East Asia and Europe playing Bach complete flute sonatas which they have recorded together for EMI.

In 1996 he signed an exclusive contract with EMI Classics, a collaboration which is set to be one of the most significant contributions to recorded flute music. The releases have received unanimous critical acclaim (“I haven’t heard a flautist on disc that I like as much as Pahud” – American Record Guide ; “surpassing any previous recordings of the Mozart quartets”- BBC Music Magazine ; “this signals the arrival of a new master flautist” – The Guardian ; “don’t miss any of Pahud’s recordings!” Diapason ), and have been showered with awards including several TV-Victoires de la Musique, Diapason d’Or, Radio France’s “Recording of the Year”, Fono-Forum and TV-Echo awards in Germany, “Record Geijutsu” and “Ongaku no Tomo” award from the Japanese record industry.

Friedemann Eichhorn wurde 1971 in Münster geboren. Er studierte Violine bei Valery Gradow in Mannheim, bei Alberto Lysy an der International Menuhin Music Academy in der Schweiz und bei Margaret Pardee an der Juilliard School New York, außerdem Musikwissenschaft und Jura an der Universität Mainz, wo er auch promovierte. Friedemann Eichhorn konzertierte unter anderen mit dem SWR-Rundfunkorchester, Orchestre de Bretagne, den Hamburger Symphonikern, St. Petersburger Philharmonikern, der Rheinischen Philharmonie und gastierte in Musikzentren wie dem Münchener Gasteig, Schauspielhaus Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein-Musik-Festival, Menuhin-Festival, Kronberg- Festival. Im Jahr 2002 wurde Friedemann Eichhorn als Professor für Violine an die Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar berufen. Er leitet das Institut für Streicher und Harfe und den Internationalen Louis-Spohr-Violinwettbewerb. Seit 2007 unterrichtet er auch an der Sommerakademie des Mozarteums in Salzburg. Friedemann Eichhorn erhielt zahlreiche Auszeichnungen, darunter die George Enescu Medaille des Rumänischen Kulturinstituts. Er ist Mitherausgeber von Violinwerken beim Schott-Verlag und schrieb Artikel für das Lexikon MGG. CD-Aufnahmen entstanden gemeinsam mit José Gallardo, Alexander Hülshoff, Thomas Müller-Pering und Julius Berger bei den Labels Hänssler und Naxos.

www.friedemanneichhorn.com

“Watch out for Friedemann Eichhorn” The Strad

“Just don’t miss it.” Yorkshire Post

“Brilliant.” Süddeutsche Zeitung

Maja Weber

I am Maja Weber and was born into a family of musicians in 1974. My father is a violist and my mother and my elder sister are both violinists. Music was thus no new discovery for me. I was presented with a small cello when I was three-and-a-half, and I have always been very happy with the choice others made for me then. I never questioned the automatic assumption that I wanted to be a cellist. My parents recollect that every time we saw a church when I was four, I used to say I would later give a concert there. Chamber music was our great passion at home, and very soon we were drawing positive attention as a family quartet.
I first studied with Markus Stocker and Cäcilia Chmel at the Winterthur College of Music, continuing in Cologne with Frans Helmerson (cello) and the Alban Berg Quartet (chamber music). In 1987, whilst still at school, my sister and I formed a string quartet which has borne the name Amar Quartet since 1995. I have been particularly influenced by personalities like Isaac Stern, Walter Levin, Paul Katz and Valentin Berlinsky. My passion was one hundred per cent for chamber music, and independence was important to me right from the start. For me, the many years of participating in string quartet competitions was a decisive opportunity to develop and feel my way around. My most important successes were the second prizes in Geneva and Graz, the Millennium Award in London and first prizes in Cremona and Bubenreuth. I received considerable support from the Swiss Chamber Music Competition of Migros Kulturprozent.
The communication chamber music demands has always particularly fascinated me, and it is also what drives me to communicate with audiences and other partners. Together with the Amar Quartet, prior to 2006 I initiated, organized and with a great deal of passion realized several music festivals and crossover projects. As a young quartet, we had the good fortune to be able to perform regularly at all the major concert seasons in Switzerland, as well as at some in Germany and Austria.
I saw it as a logical development to form a new string quartet, the Stradivari Quartet, in 2007. After our brilliant tour debut through a number of European cities including Munich, Berlin, Vienna, Budapest and Prague, I have continued to seek further concert engagements all over the world. I find it fantastic that musical language is understood worldwide and that there are no cultural barriers against it. I never fail to be astounded at the number of diverse and exciting people we meet in our work. The Stradivari Quartet now undertakes annual tours of China, Japan and the USA.

Like Per Lundberg, I have played in Ars Amata Zurich for more than twenty years. When I was a child, my parents always allowed me to learn by being around them. Later, as a teenager, I had the opportunity to discover and perform the most beautiful chamber works with experienced musicians.
I have made recordings since the start of my career. Apart from various concert and radio recordings, I have recorded more than 20 CDs on various labels with the Stradivari Quartet, the Amar Quartet, Ars Amata Zurich, the family quartet, and other friends of mine.

I live with my businessman husband and our three sons on beautiful Lake Zurich. Communication also plays the leading role in my personal life. I most especially enjoy organizing and taking the initiative in my relations with my family and friends.
I will never forget how extraordinarily delighted I was in June 1999, when I received an inquiry asking whether I and my sister would like our Amar Quartet to play on four Stradivari instruments. Since then I have enjoyed the unique privilege of playing the Stradivari “Suggia” cello of 1717. We have experienced a lot together in this time and I am deeply grateful to the Habisreutinger Stradivari Foundation in Gersau for the loan.

Per Lundberg

My name is Per Lundberg and I was born in Stockholm in 1962. When I was about four, my family moved from Stockholm to Norrköping, a city 160 km to the south, and that is my real home town. My parents are not musicians, but my father listened to a lot of jazz and my mother bought a piano for me, and I began to play it when I was about seven. My parents saw to it that I started off with a sound musical education and a lot of choral singing. My true interest in music was engendered when I was ten, when I found an old LP my mother had inherited from her brother – Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto in B flat minor with the pianist Van Cliburn in a live recording made at the famous Moscow competition in the fifties. I was completely enthralled by the music and decided there and then to become a pianist. It was probably more by luck than judgement that I met the pianist Marianne Jacobs, who became my first important teacher. She introduced me seriously to the world of music, which finally helped me to gain a place at Edsberg Manor in Sollentuna, then run by Swedish Radio and since 1999 by the Swedish Royal College of Music. Edsberg is a small exclusive college with only 25 students – string players and pianists. The central focus was chamber music, which exerted great influence on my musical career via the professors, José Ribera (piano), Endre Wolf (violin) and Frans Helmerson (cello). I graduated after another three years of study with Professor Heinz Medjimorec at the Vienna College of Music and Performing Arts. I then returned to Stockholm, where for almost twenty-five years I worked as accompanist and finally as professor of chamber music at Edsberg Manor. The time I spent in Vienna was extremely important to me, and foremost among all the unforgettable memories are the concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein.

As a pianist, I have performed in chamber groupings in most European countries and above all in Scandinavia. Together with Sara Hesselink, leader, and Claes Gunnarsson, solo cellist of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, I perform in the Trio Poseidon, which records for Chandos and other labels.
Like Maja Weber, I have for twenty years been a member of Ars Amata Zurich, which performs in various groupings, but focuses mainly on piano quartets and quintets. I also regularly appear as a soloist, and in 1997 gave the Swedish first performance of Lutoslawski’s Piano Concerto of 1989 with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. I have been one of the driving forces behind the very successful international Lyckå Chamber Music Festival in Karlskrona for thirty years now. I was given a professorship in accompaniment and chamber music at the Norwegian College of Music in Oslo in 2013, and that has compelled me to withdraw from of some my activities at Edsberg Manor.

I live in Enskede in the south of Stockholm with my wife, who is also a pianist, my daughter, who is twenty-one and is studying the violin at the College of Music, and my son, who is nineteen and wants to become a cellist. I have many interests. Among others, I took up gliding twenty years ago and have renovated my 1920s villa from top to bottom myself. I am hopelessly in love with the dreamlike Stockholm skerries. One of my big dreams came true a few years ago, when I bought my boat, an Oxelö 27 called Victoria. With her I enjoy that wonderful countryside between small islands and skerries every summer.

Hamburg born violinist and conductor, Philip A. Draganov, has enthralled audiences in Europe, Asia and the USA with his „impulsive virtuosity… and exuberant musical power” (Hamburger Abendblatt). He had his debut as soloist at the age of only twelve with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra in the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg and has since enjoyed a multifaceted international career.

Philip A. Draganov has performed in many renowned concert halls such as Carnegie Hall/New York, Tonhalle Zürich, the National Centre for Performing Arts in Beijing, Kölner Philharmonie, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and Alte Oper in Frankfurt. In addition, Draganov has performed at important music festivals such as Aspen Music Festival/USA and Schleswig-Holstein-Musik-Festival.

In addition to solo performances, recitals and chamber music concerts, Draganov is regularly invited by major orchestras to perform as concertmaster or section leader. He has worked with conductors such as Günter Wand, Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Christoph von Dohnány, Michael Tilson Thomas, Christoph Eschenbach, Alan Gilbert, Sir Roger Norrington and Kent Nagano with various orchestras such as the NDR Symphony Orchestra/Hamburg or the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.

For almost 20 years, Draganov has devoted himself intensively to the training and education of highly talented young violinists. Many of his current and former students are prize winners of national and international violin competitions. Draganov teaches students from around 10 years of age up to college level and is one of the most successful teachers for highly talented students in Switzerland and Europe. As a guest professor, he has been invited to teach at various music universities, master classes and festivals in Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Italy, Spain, South Korea and the USA. Moreover, Philip Draganov is member of the European String Teachers Association and juror for international competitions.
His edition of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto will be published in 2017 by the Gilgenreiner-Verlag. In this edition the author compares all relevant sources such as the autograph, the first print of the score, the first piano reduction and the second edition, revised by the composer.
Since 2010, Philip A. Draganov has been Artistic Director of “Youth Classics” (www.youth-classics.com) The “Youth Classics International Music Festival and Masterclasses” is a meeting place for students from all over the world to connect with internationally renowned teachers.

After private lessons with Roland Greutter in Hamburg, Philip A. Draganov had received lessons with Uwe-Marin Haiberg already at the pre-college of the University of Arts in Berlin. He then went on to study at the Juilliard School in New York with Margaret Pardee, Masao Kawasaki, Robert Chen, and chamber music with Felix Galimir. In Europe, he studied with Herman Krebbers in Amsterdam, Ida Bieler in Düsseldorf, Jens Ellermann in Hannover and Nora Chastain in Zürich. He received important ideas and impulses from master classes with Ana Chumachenco, Thomas Brandis, Rosa Fain and Hatto Beyerle (Alban Berg Quartet).
Parallel to his violin studies, Draganov received his diploma in conducting from the Zurich University of the Arts.

At the age of 10, Philip Draganov won the first prize at the “Jugend musiziert” competition in overall Germany. In the following years to come, he won numerous awards and competitions such as the “Wettbewerb zur Förderung junger Künstler”. He received, among others, the scholarship from the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation.

In the last 10 years, Draganov has started to focus and perform more as a conductor. He has worked with professional and youth orchestras such as the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, members of the Tonhalle Orchestra, Karlsbad Symphony Orchestra (Czech Republic), Pre-College Orchestra Zürich (Zurich University of the Arts), YOUTH CLASSICS Orchestra and Seongnam Music Festival’s youth orchestra (South Korea). Since 2007, Philip A. Draganov conducts his own orchestra, Chamber Orchestra MKZ, which has become one of the leading youth orchestras in Switzerland. With this orchestra, he regularly performs in Switzerland and has been invited for concert tours to several German concert halls such as Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and Laeiszhalle Hamburg. Philip A. Draganov is an active supporter of the Childhood Cancer Research Foundation Switzerland and gives an annual charity concert to support this cause in the Tonhalle Zürich.

Draganov plays a violin made by the Italian violin maker Tomaso Balestrieri from 1769 and a violin from the German luthier Peter Greiner.
He lives near Zurich.

More information at: www.draganov.ch

The Duo Arnicans comprises Florian Arnicans, whose roots are in Germany, and Arta Arnicane, who was born in Latvia. Each of them had a long and exciting period of training. They found each other through music and now live together in Zurich.

Arta Arnicane started to play the piano and compose at the age of four. Supported by numerous foundations, she studied for her master’s degree in Glasgow (2003) and Riga (2008), graduating with distinction in Zurich (2010 and 2012). She received wide-ranging support from professors Sergejs Osokins, Norma Fischer and Homero Francesch, who guided her artistic development and entrée to the international music and competition scene. Arta has won prizes at numerous international competitions, including Vianna da Motta (2001), Premio Iturbi (2010) and Prague Spring Festival (2011).
Arta performs a wide-ranging repertoire of solo and chamber works. She particularly likes playing Ravel’s solo piano works and Mozart’s piano concertos. Since 2010 Arta has regularly performed in concerts with John Gibbons, conductor and head of the British Music Society, and Martin Lebel, principal conductor of the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra.

Florian Arnicans’s musical journey began in Namibia, where he had his first cello lessons at the age of five and discovered his love and calling for music. After briefly attending the musical high school at Belvedere Palace in Weimar, the highly talented Florian began studying in the class of Prof. Böhme at the Franz Liszt College of Music in Weimar at the age of seventeen. After completing his degree with Prof. Johannes Goritzki at the Robert Schumann College of Music in Düsseldorf, he attended the soloists’ class of Prof. Patrick Demenga at the Conservatoire de Lausanne in Switzerland. He was then awarded the Max Jost-Preis for obtaining his soloist’s diploma with distinction, and went on to study for his master’s diploma in chamber music with the renowned Guarneri Trio Prague, passing with distinction in Lucerne.
Florian is at present much in demand as a soloist and chamber musician, and has performed with renowned orchestras and at music festivals like the Lake Constance Festival (2013), the Bregenz Festival (2013) and the London Proms (2014).

Forming the Duo Arnicans with Arta in April 2013 represented a very important step in Florian’s musical and personal development. The Duo has performed in numerous concerts and recitals at home and abroad. The first international concert tour took place in the autumn of 2014, when they had great success in Scotland, England (London) and Latvia (Riga).

The debut album of Duo Arnicans presents an emotionally charged programme reflecting the personalities of the two artists. The Chopin waltz on this CD has special meaning for Florian and his wife. Arranged by Arta for cello and piano, it was performed by close female friends as the couple’s personal wedding waltz in August 2014.

Sergey Dogadin wurde 1988 in Sankt Petersburg in eine Musikerfamilie hineingeboren. Im Alter von nur zwölf Jahren gewann er bedeutende Preise in St. Petersburg und Paris.

Insgesamt hat er fünf internationale Wettbewerbe gewinnen können, so etwa den “Internationalen Andrea Postaccini Violinwettbewerb” (erster Preis, Sonderpreis und Grand Prix in Italien, 2002) und die “Niccolò Paganini International Violin Competition” (erster Preis, 2005).

Sergey Dogadin ist Stipendiat des russischen Kultusministeriums, der Stiftung “New Names”, der Stiftung “C. Orbelian International Culture Exchange” sowie der “Temirkanov Foundation”.

Der junge Künstler verfügt bereits über einen großen Schatz an Konzerterfahrung. Er bereiste die USA, Deutschland, Holland, England, Frankreich, Italien, Estland, Litauen, Ungarn, Türkei und die Schweiz.

Er musizierte mit Klangkörpern wie das Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, das London Philharmonic Orchestra, die Nationalorchester von Estland und Litauen, das Ulster Symphony Orchestra, das Nordic Symphony Orchestra, das Budapest Symphony Orchestra, das Taipei Symphony Orchestra, das Sinfonieorchester der Russischen Föderation und die Sankt Petersburger Philharmoniker.

Sergey Dogadin arbeitet mit berühmten Dirigenten zusammen wie Dimitrev, Altshuler, Alexeev, Schulz, Liss, Trory, Rudin, Tali, Santora, Petrenko, Skulzky, Steinlucht, Tang und Mastrangelo. Bei verschiedenen Festivals wurde ihm die Ehre zuteil, auf Geigen von Niccolò Paganini und Strauss zu spielen.

Zurzeit spielt Sergey Dogadin auf einer Geige von Jean Baptiste Vuillaume.

The Bern-based ensemble Die Freitagsakademie was founded in 1993 along the lines of the “Friday Academies” established by the Berlin composer Johann Gottlieb Janitsch in the 1730s. Inspired by this institution, the ensemble has performed in many different formations since 1993, focussing on music from the 17th and 18th centuries and using instruments from those periods. “There is no such thing as old music” is the motto which aptly describes the ensemble’s artistic mission. While using historical instruments and upholding historical performance practices, the Freitagsakademie aims to dispel the common perception of these works as time-honoured relics and instead looks to gear them more towards a present-day audience. The result is a gripping form of contemporary art. The work of this ensemble, directed by Katharina Suske, Bernhard Maurer and Vital Julian Frey, has attracted much attention and found great popularity. Over the years, the ensemble’s numerous concerts and recordings have earned the Freitagsakademie great respect on the Swiss and international music scenes. The Freitagsakademie has been running its own series of concerts since 2002. After ten years at the Bern Museum of Fine Arts, the venue for these concerts was changed to the Great Hall of the Bern Conservatory in 2012.
www.freitagsakademie.com

Diana Ketler

Diana Ketler was born in Riga into a well-known family of musicians. She commenced her studies of music and piano at the age of five at the E Darzins specialized music school in Riga, and played her concerto debut at the age of 11 with Latvian National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Vassily Sinaisky. Diana graduated from the Latvian Academy of Music with a first class Honours degree in 1993, having studied with Theofil Bikis. From 1992 to 1994 she studied at the Mozarteum Academy in Salzburg under Karl-Heinz Kammerling. In 1994 Diana continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Christopher Elton. She graduated in 1996, receiving the Dip RAM. In 1996/1997 and in 2000/2001 Diana was awarded the Hodgson Piano Fellowship at the Academy.
Diana has appeared as a soloist with Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Sudwestdeutsches Kammerorchester, Riga Chamber Orchestra, Georgisches Kammerorchester and Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. She has performed extensively in Britain, Japan, Canada, Russia and most European countries. Her engagements have included performances at the Gstaad Musiksommer Festival , Ravello Music Festival, St Gallen Musikfestival, Carinthischer Sommer and Kobe International Art Festival. Diana has given recitals at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, Purcell Room, Glenn Gould Studios in Toronto, Tokyo Opera City Hall, Osaka Symphony Hall, Atheneum in Bucharest and other prestigious venues.
She has collaborated with artists such as Wolfram Christ, Konstantin Lifschitz, Daishin Kashimoto, Adrian Brendel, Baiba Skride, Remus Azoitei, Sasha Sitkovetsky, Bernhard Hedenborg, Narimichi Kawabata, Inga Kalna and Marlis Petersen. As a member of the ensemble Raro she regularly tours Europe and Japan. Diana has given a number of British and German premieres of the works by contemporary Baltic composers and collaborates closely with Peteris Vasks and Arvo Pärt.
Diana’s performances have been broadcast on radio and television in Japan, Britain (BBC 3, Classic FM), Germany (Bavarian Radio), Romania, Latvia and Austria. Since 2003 Diana has been professor of piano at the Royal Academy of Music. She has given masterclasses in Spain, Czech Republic, England, Latvia and former Yugoslavia, and has served as a jury member at the International piano Competition Jeunesses Musicales in Bucharest. Since 2004 Diana has been artistic director of the Chiemgauer Musikfrühling Festival in Bavaria, Germany.

Konstantin Lifschitz
Konstantin Lifschitz was born December 10, 1976, in Kharkov. As a child, he became irresistibly attracted to the piano, playing by ear and improvising with total absorption for hours on end. This aptitude for his chosen instrument was so remarkable that at age five he enrolled in the renowned Moscow Gnessin Special Middle School of Music, studying with Tatiana Zelikman. In future years of studies in Russia, England and Italy his teachers also included Theodor Gutmann, Vladimir Tropp, Hamish Milne, Alfred Brendel, Fou T’song, Leon Fleisher, Rosalyn Tureck, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel and Charles Rosen.
In the early 1990s the Russian Culture Foundation awarded him a scholarship. Soon afterwards he performed in Paris, Amsterdam, the Hague, Vienna, Munich, Milan and other prominent cities in Europe. The “New Names” programme brought Konstantin Lifschitz to the attention of renowned Vladimir Spivakov, who immediately arranged for Konstantin to perform Mozart Concerto K. 453 as his soloist with the Moscow Virtuosi in Moscow and on tour in Japan doing Bach Concerto in d minor in Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima and Sapporo. Following this journey, he was invited by Spivakov to Monte Carlo and Antibes for the performances of Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo.
At 13, Konstantin presented a landmark recital in the October Hall of the House of Unions in Moscow. The capacity crowd responded with an overwhelming enthusiasm that even back then established him as a major artist. In 1994 Konstantin Lifschitz presented his graduation recital from the Gnessin School – his program commenced with Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Denon Nippon Columbia recorded the 17-year-old in this deeply felt interpretation of his beloved Bach. The recording, when released in 1996, was nominated for a Grammy Award and moved critic Edward Rothstein of The New York Times to acclaim Lifschitz’s performance “the most powerful pianistic interpretation since Glenn Gould’s.” A year before he won the German Echo Classic Record Prize, as a “New Young Artist of the Year” for his Debut Recording Album (Bach French Overture, Schumann Papillons, works of Medtner and Scriabin).
Konstantin gives recitals and concerto performances in almost all the important Musical metropoles of the world – Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Munich, Leipzig, Dresden, London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Milan, Montreal, Madrid, Lisbon, Rome, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, Cape Town, Chisinau, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Limassol, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tel-Aviv, Tokyo, Perth, Auckland, Seoul, Paris, Vienna, Geneva, Zurich, Gent, Stavanger, Kuhmo etc.
He played as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the London Symphony and the New Japan Philharmonic under Maestro Mstislav Rostropovich, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields under Sir Neville Marriner, the Moscow Philharmonic under Yuri Simonov, Tokyo Symphony, Sapporo Symphony, the Shanghai Philharmonic, the George Enescu Philharmonic under Emil Simon, the Czech Chamber State Orchestra and the Bournemouth Symphony under Lu Jia, Russian State Orchestra under Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Moscow Symphony, San Paulo Symphony under Michel Tabachnik, Orchestra della RAI under Jeffrey Tate, the New Amsterdam Sinfonietta under Peter Oundjian, I Solisti Veneti under Claudio Scimone, the Gulbenkian Foundation Orchestra Lisbon, the Florida Philharmonic under James Judd, The New Zealand Symphony under Matthias Bamert, the New Jersey Symphony under Maximiano Valdes, the Danish National Radio Orchestra under Christopher Hogwood, the MDR Symphony Orchestra under Fabio Luisi and Mark Gorenstein, the Beethoven Festival Orchestra Bonn under Peter Gülke, the German State Philharmonic under Georg Mark, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg under Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as well as the Berlin Symphony under Eliahu Inbal, the Minnesota Symphony under Eri Klaas, the EUYO under Bernard Haitink, the Vienna Chamber Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony under Sir Roger Norrington, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra under Vladimir Verbitsky, the Berlin Radio Orchestra under Marek Janowski and Mikhail Jurowsky, Belgrade Philharmonic under Leonid Grin and Dmitry Liss, the Saarbruecken Radio Orchestra and the Bern Symphony under Andrey Boreyko and the St.Petersburg Philharmonic under Yuri Temirkanov to name some.
Konstantin Lifschitz is also a dedicated chamber Musician, performing with major artists including Gidon Kremer, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Maxim Vengerov, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Leila Josefowicz, Misha Maisky, Mstislav Rostropovich, Lynn Harrell, Carolin Widmann, Eugene Ugorski, Daishin Kashimoto, Bella Davidovich, Valery Afanassiev, Talich Quartet, Szymanowski Quartet, Reto Bieri, Natalia Gutman, Diemut Poppen, Joerg Widmann Hans-Heinz Schneeberger, Jiri Barta, Lara St. Johns, Sol Gabetta and others.
He has one of vastest repertoire of solo, orchestral and chamber works of the living pianists. He has also given concerts as a harpsichord-player. Several composers wrote works expressly for him. Lifschitz was also awarded prizes for his Musical and beneficial activities. He particularly enjoys working with singers.
In the recent time Konstantin Lifschitz is starting to be more and more requested as a conductor. He conducts, amongst others, orchestras such as the Moscow Virtuosi, Lux Aeterna + the Gabrieli Choir (Budapest), Musica Viva (Moscow), St. Kristupas (Vilnius), Arpeggione (Austria) or I Solisti di Napoli.
Konstantin Lifschitz made several recordings for the label Orfeo which contain Bach Musical Offering along with St. Anne Prelude and Fugue, BWV 552 and Frescobaldi Three Toccatas (released 2007), Gottfried von Einem Piano Concerto with the Austrian Radio and Television Orchestra Vienna under Claudius Meister (2009), Brahms Concerto Nr 2 with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra under Maestro D. Fischer-Dieskau (2010), Bach Art of the Fugue-the work of Music Lifschitz himself considers being closest to in the past few years (to be released in October 2010). His November Orfeo project is to record all 7 Bach Concertos for one keyboard and orchestra with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducting that group from piano. In 2008 VAI company released his live-performance of the Bach WTC I&II from the Miami International Piano Festival. Most of his recordings (over 20) have received a very high appreciation from the international press.
In 2002/2003 K. Lifschitz was appointed an Associate/a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music London. Since 2008 he has his own class at the Hochschule Musik in Lucerne. He gives master-classes around the world and takes part in different educational programmes.
Highlights of Konstantin’s 2010/2011 season include tours in Korea, Australia, Japan, Germany, Spain and Russia as well as Lucerne, Bucharest, Yerevan, Copenhagen (Tivoli), Vienna (Grand Hall of the Musikverein) and London (Wigmore Hall) single appearances. In August 2011 he returns to the Rheingau Festival for the continuation of his All Bach Works Series.