Cyprien Katsaris

Cyprien Katsaris was just fifteen when he played the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in May 1966. Born in Marseille in 1951 and brought up partly in Cameroon, where he began the piano at four, he trained at the Paris Conservatoire with Aline van Barentzen and Monique de la Bruchollerie, carrying off first prizes in piano and chamber music, and worked briefly with György Cziffra — whose competition he won in 1974, two years after becoming a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth in Brussels. He recorded the complete Liszt transcriptions of Beethoven's nine symphonies, and his discography includes a Mozart concerto series. He was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace in 1997 and founded his own label, Piano 21, in 2001. The Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal Concertgebouw are among the orchestras he has played with, and he writes music of his own as well.