New Year's Concert with the Piano Duo Martin Kasik and Kristina Kasikova

About the event

Martin Kasik and Kristina Kasikova perform works for piano four hands by A. Dvořák, G. Fauré and M. Ravel.

“Mr. Kasik plays with a resourceful technique, fluidity, a keen sense of colour and intelligence.” — The New York Times

MARTIN KASIK, born in Moravia in 1976, is one of the most important Czech pianists of our time. He studied in Ostrava with Monika Tugendliebová and in Prague with Ivan Klánsky, and refined his artistry in masterclasses with Lazar Berman, Eugen Indjic, Garrick Ohlsson, Christian Zacharias and Paul Badura-Skoda, among others.

He has won first prizes and awards at major national and international piano competitions, including the “Prague Spring” International Piano Competition in 1998, the Young Concert Artists Competition New York in 1999, the Prix Davidoff in 2000 and the Harmonie Magazine Award in 2002.

The first prize in New York in particular propelled the then 23-year-old Kasík straight into an international concert career. Today he appears with famous orchestras in the world's great concert halls, including the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall London, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Finlandia Hall Helsinki, the Auditori de Barcelona, Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Avery Fisher Hall), the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

As a soloist he has appeared with orchestras such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, under Pinchas Zukerman, Marin Alsop, Yakov Kreizberg, Ingo Metzmacher, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Libor Pesek, Jakub Hrůša and Tomáš Netopil. He works regularly with the Czech Philharmonic and the Prague Symphony Orchestra.

With a remarkably wide repertoire, Martin Kasik also frequently gives solo recitals and performs in chamber ensembles, earning an outstanding reputation as an interpreter of Chopin. Numerous radio and television appearances are complemented by a substantial number of partly award-winning CD recordings.

Since 2008 Martin Kasik has been president of the Chopin Festival in Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad) and since 2009 a piano lecturer at the Prague Conservatory. He also teaches at the Academy of Music in Prague.

KRISTINA KASIKOVA studied at the Janáček Conservatory in Ostrava with Prof. Monika Tugendliebová and graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague under Prof. Ivan Klánský. As one of the finest students she studied on a state scholarship. She has won prizes at several national and international competitions, for example the Beethoven Competition in Hradec nad Moravicí, and has performed in Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Latvia, China and the USA.

Ms Kasíková devotes herself above all to chamber music. She often performs with her husband Martin Kasík, with whom she has recorded a critically acclaimed CD of Dvořák's Slavonic Dances. Since 2005 she has taught at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory in Prague.

Afterwards our traditional cold buffet – contributions welcome!

Biographies