Piano Recital with Boris Bloch

About the event

Boris Bloch plays works by Mozart, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Albéniz and Scriabin. A cooperative event with the European Partnership Association.

The Odessa-born pianist Boris Bloch has long been among the most important interpreters of Classical and Romantic piano music. Trained at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the master class of Dmitri Bashkirov, he developed a broad repertoire early on, ranging from Scarlatti and Bach, the Viennese Classics, Chopin and Liszt through German and Russian Romanticism to the major composers of the 20th century. Bloch's detailed knowledge of the piano literature, his comprehensive command of music history, his astonishing pianism and above all his strong artistic personality form the basis for the much-praised expressive depth, richness of colour, striking stylistic authenticity and the incomparable “singing” quality of his playing.

After his studies in Moscow, Boris Bloch won several international piano competitions, including the coveted first prize at the “Ferruccio Busoni” Competition in Bolzano in 1978.

Several of Bloch's recordings are regarded as benchmarks, in particular his recordings of Liszt opera paraphrases, honoured with the Grand Prix International du Disque Liszt of the Liszt Society Budapest and the Diapason d'Or Paris, his recording of Mussorgsky's piano works, which received the Excellence Disque prize in Paris, and the live recordings of Mozart's “Coronation Concerto” and Tchaikovsky's Third Piano Concerto in its complete version.

In 2011 the label ARS Produktion launched a Boris Bloch Edition. The first CD of the series was dedicated to Franz Liszt on the occasion of his 200th birthday and received the honorary prize of the Hungarian Liszt Society. Further CDs of the edition are devoted to Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Scarlatti, Schubert and J. S. Bach.

In 2012 Boris Bloch performed all three volumes of the “Années de Pèlerinage” with sensational success in Raiding, the birthplace of Franz Liszt. In recognition of his particular commitment to Franz Liszt's legacy, the Austrian Liszt Society granted him honorary membership in 2018. For his many years of successful teaching at the Folkwang University he received the music education prize of the Köhler-Osbar Foundation and the City of Duisburg in 2007. Boris Bloch regularly leads master classes in Germany and abroad and frequently sits on the juries of international competitions.

Biographies