Garrick Ohlsson
Encyclopedia
Garrick Ohlsson is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

 pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

.

Ohlsson was the first American to win first prize in the International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition, in 1970. He also won first prize at the Busoni Competition
Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition
The Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition is a music competition for young pianists that takes place in Bolzano, Italy.-History: The first Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition was organized by Cesare Nordio in 1949 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the death of pianist and...

 in Italy and the Montreal Piano Competition in Canada. Ohlsson was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize
Avery Fisher Prize
The Avery Fisher Prize is an award given to American musicians for outstanding achievement in classical music. Founded by philanthropist Avery Fisher in 1974, it is regarded as one of the most significant awards for American instrumentalists. The award is decided by members of the Avery Fisher...

 in 1994 and received the 1998 University Musical Society Distinguished Artist Award in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Early life

Ohlsson began his studies at the age of eight at the Music Conservatory of Westchester in White Plains
White Plains, New York
White Plains is a city and the county seat of Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound...

 and, at the age of 13, began studying at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

. His musical development has been influenced in completely different ways by a succession of distinguished teachers, most notably Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau
Claudio Arrau León was a Chilean pianist known for his interpretations of a vast repertoire spanning from the baroque to 20th-century composers, especially Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy...

, Olga Barabini, Tom Lishman, Sascha Gorodnitzki
Sascha Gorodnitzki
Sascha Gorodnitzki .Born in Kiev, he emigrated as an infant to Brooklyn, NY, where his parents founded a college of music. He was a child prodigy; his teachers included his mother, then Percy Goetschius, Rubin Goldmark, William J. Henderson and Krehbiel at the Institute of Musical Art. At...

, Rosina Lhévinne
Rosina Lhévinne
Rosina Bessie Lhévinne was a Russian American pianist and famed pedagogue....

 and Irma Wolpe. Ohlsson is noted for his performances of the works of Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, and Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

, as well as the Romantic repertoire.

Career

Ohlsson has performed in North America with symphony orchestras of Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Houston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Washington D.C., and Berkeley; and the National Arts Centre, St. Paul Chamber, and the London Philharmonic at Lincoln Center.

Ohlsson is an avid chamber musician and has collaborated with the Cleveland, Emerson
Emerson String Quartet
The Emerson String Quartet is a New York–based string quartet in residence at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Previously the Quartet was in residence at The Hartt School. Formed in 1976, they have released more than twenty albums and won nine Grammy Awards. Both violinists...

, Takács and Tokyo string quartets, among other ensembles.

Ohlsson toured with the Takács Quartet
Takács Quartet
The Takács Quartet is a string quartet, founded in Hungary, and now based in Boulder, Colorado, United States.- History :In 1975, four students at the Music Academy in Budapest, Gabor Takács-Nagy , Károly Schranz , Gabor Ormai , and András Fejér formed The Takács Quartet...

 in 2005-2006.

Ohlsson is a founding member of San Francisco's FOG Trio, together with violinist Jorja Fleezanis and cellist Michael Grebanier.

In 2006-2007, he opened the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. He has also performed at the BBC Proms with the Budapest Festival Orchestra
Budapest Festival Orchestra
The Budapest Festival Orchestra was formed in 1983 by Iván Fischer and Zoltán Kocsis, with musicians "drawn from the cream of Hungary's younger players", as The Times put it...

. In 2010 he visited Australia and gave concerts in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

.

Among his many recordings, Ohlsson undertook a survey of Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

's complete piano music - including sonatas, preludes, etudes, ballades, rondos, scherzos, variations, polonaises, nocturnes, waltzes, mazurkas, concertos, and others. In 1989, he recorded Busoni's five movement Piano Concerto
Piano Concerto (Busoni)
The Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 39 , by Ferruccio Busoni, is one of the largest works ever written in this particular genre. The concerto is in five movements, the last of which also utilizes a male chorus singing words from the final scene of the verse drama Aladdin by Adam Oehlenschläger.The...

 in C major, Op. 39 with the Cleveland Orchestra
Cleveland Orchestra
The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...

 under Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi is a German conductor of Hungarian ancestry.- Youth and World War II :Dohnányi was born in Berlin, Germany to jurist Hans von Dohnányi and Christine Bonhoeffer. His uncle on his mother's side was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian/ethicist...

.

Ohlsson possesses an unusually vast repertoire that ranges over some eighty concertos. He is also known for his exceptional keyboard stretch (a 12th in the left hand and a 11th in the right).

Prizes

  • First Prize, 1966 Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition
    Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition
    The Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition is a music competition for young pianists that takes place in Bolzano, Italy.-History: The first Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition was organized by Cesare Nordio in 1949 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the death of pianist and...

    , Bolzano
  • Gold Medal, 1970 International Frédéric Chopin Piano Competition, Warsaw
    Warsaw
    Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

  • Avery Fisher Prize, 1994
  • Grammy Award, 2008

Discography

Garrick Ohlsson has recorded with the following labels:
  • Arabesque Recordings
  • RCA Red Seal Records
    RCA Red Seal Records
    RCA Red Seal Records is a classical music label and is now part of Sony Masterworks.The Red Seal label was begun in 1902 by the Gramophone Company in the United Kingdom and was quickly picked up by its United States affiliate, the Victor Talking Machine Company, and its president, Eldridge R. Johnson...

  • Angel Records
    Angel Records
    Angel Records is a record label belonging to EMI. It was formed in 1953 and specialised in classical music, but included an occasional operetta or Broadway score...

  • Bridge Records
  • BMG
    BMG
    Bertelsmann Music Group, , was a division of Bertelsmann before its completion of sale of the majority of its assets to Japan's Sony Corporation of America on October 1, 2008. It was established in 1987 to combine the music label activities of Bertelsmann...

  • Delos International
    Delos International
    Delos International is an American record label. Based in Hollywood, California, it specializes in publishing classical music. The Delos recording label was founded in 1973 by Amelia S. Haygood , one of the most prominent figures in the classical recording industry...

  • Hänssler Classic
    Hänssler Classic
    Hänssler Classic is a German classical record label based in Holzgerlingen.Friedrich Hänssler Senior founded Musikverlag Hänssler in 1919 to publish church music. Since 1972 Hänssler Classic has also published contemporary and jazz music...

  • Hyperion Records
    Hyperion Records
    Hyperion Records is an independent British classical record label.-History:The company was named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology. It was founded by George Edward Perry, widely known as "Ted", in 1980. Early LP releases included rarely recorded 20th century British music by...

     - Complete works of Chopin
  • Nonesuch Records
    Nonesuch Records
    Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...

  • Telarc
  • EMI Classics
    EMI Classics
    EMI Classics is a record label of EMI, formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases....

  • Connoisseur Society
    Connoisseur Society
    Connoisseur Society is an American audiophile classical music and jazz record label based in New York. It was founded by E. Alan Silver and James Goodfriend. Silver is also leading the company In Sync, which offers remasterings on CDs from tapes and LPs.Silver and Goodfriend helped artists from the...


External links

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