“Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to play on your excellent grand piano. I wish the company and its staff every success in keeping up the great Bechstein tradition.”
Markus Groh
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung calls Markus Groh’s style a “symbiosis of fury and poetry”; the Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote, after his first concert at Munich’s Herkulessaal, that the pianist has “the temperament of Martha Argerich and the aesthetic rigour of Sviatoslav Richter”. A winner of the Bechstein prize, Markus Groh is among Germany’s most successful contemporary pianists. Also winner of the First Prize at Brussels’s Queen Elisabeth competition in 1995, he performs regularly with the world’s greatest ensembles (London Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra), working with outstanding conductors such as Ivan Fischer, Neeme Järvi, Fabio Luisi, Kent Nagano, Jonathan Nott, and David Robertson.
Groh has appeared at numerous international festivals (Schleswig-Holstein-Musikfestival, Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspielen, Schwetzinger Festspielen, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg) and performed in cities throughout the world (Amsterdam, Athens, Berlin, Brussels, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Mexico City, Munich, New York, Osaka, Paris, Tokyo, Toronto, Vienna, Washington DC, Zurich). In 2003, he established the Bebersee Festival north of Berlin, which has since become a prestigious event. Groh’s first Super Audio CD, recorded in 2006 with works by Liszt, won several prizes, including Gramophone’s “Editor’s Choice”. His second SACD featuring works by Brahms was declared “star of the month” in the September 2008 issue of Fono Forum.
A former professor at Hanover’s University of Music, Markus Groh was recently appointed to Berlin’s University of the Fine Arts.
Phtoos: © 2013 Dan Williams & Kalare Studio
