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NORAH SANDE AWARD 2008
A piano competition for Young Adult Pianists of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and London postal districts
 Freddy Kempf
Patron
"The meteoric success of pianist Freddy Kempf makes it is easy to forget he is in his mid-20s. If it is true that an artist's finest years come with age, then the mind boggles at the possibilities."
Freddy Kempf was born in London in 1977 and came to national prominence in 1992 when he won the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition following a memorable performance of Rachmaninov Paganini Variations. However his first public appearance was at the age of four in a church in Folkestone England.
It was perhaps his award of third prize in the 1998 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow that established his international career. For him NOT to have won the first prize provoked protests from the audience and an outcry in the Russian press, which proclaimed him "the hero of the competition" and his unprecedented popularity with Russian audiences has been reflected in several sold-out concerts and numerous television broadcasts. His triumphant return visit to the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire the following year for solo and concerto appearances prompted the headline "Young pianist conquers Moscow" in the International Herald Tribune.
His most recent concerts have included appearances at New York's 92nd Street "Y", Salzburg Mozarteum, Cheltenham Festival, La Roque d'Anthéron Festival, Milan Conservatoire, Hamburg's Musikhalle and Zurich Tonhalle and his debut tour of Japan (which included solo and orchestral concerts culminating in a recital at Tokyo's Suntory Hall that was broadcast on radio and television). Of a recent Wigmore Hall recital, The Daily Telegraph wrote "Kempf has the maturity and musicality with which to harness his gifts to artistic ends. He has the fearless exuberance of youth. He is prepared to take risks, a readiness that brings spontaneous combustion to his playing; but he has sensitivity, too."
The 2002/2003 season saw him perform the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with the Royal Philharmonic and Daniele Gatti; this extraordinary achievement was recognized by universal acclaim by critics and audiences alike. He also made his debut on subscription with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Wolfgang Sawallisch. Other engagements included City of Birmingham Symphony and Sakari Oramo, St Petersburg Philharmonic and Yuri Temirkanov and a tour of Japan with the Dresden Symphony with Günter Herbig. And he performed at the Musikverein in Vienna for the first time.
Last season begins with several UK recitals in which Freddy focussed on the Chopin Etudes, performances which coincided with the television broadcasts of the complete Etudes which ran on BBC2 and BBC4 through the season. He gives two recitals at London's Wigmore Hall as well as others in Gergiev's Prokofiev Festival in Rotterdam, at the Piano Jacobins Festival in Toulouse and in Milan and Florence. He played concertos with City of Birmingham Symphony, Royal Scottish National, Spanish National, Berlin Symphony in an extensive UK tour, Moscow State Symphony, Luxembourg Philharmonic and Sao Paulo State Symphony.
The current season will see Freddy Kempf on a major UK recital tour in collaboration with Classic FM and Yamaha. This unprecedented tour will involve Freddy Kempf appearing in the major UK concert halls and, on the days of concerts, in local schools where he will perform and talk about his career. He also returns to Japan for a major tour and will make his debuts in Korea and China. He returns to the RPO, Bournemouth Symphony and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and he will make two separate trips to Australia.
He records exclusively for BIS Records, for whom he has recorded recital discs of Bach, Beethoven (x2), Chopin (x2), Liszt, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Schumann. In 2001, he was voted Best Young British Classical Performer in the prestigious Classical Brit Awards.
Freddy Kempf is passionately committed to chamber music and devotes time each season to performing with the Kempf Trio. Their debut recording of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov Trios on BIS drew very favourable comparisons with legendary recordings of the same works. The Evening Standard wrote "It's always a good sign when a young and highly successful pianist such as Freddy Kempf conspicuously seeks to make chamber music. Kempf Trio has already made a strong impression. This is the ensemble's first disc and it is a very fine effort."
The trio's next recording (Beethoven Trios) has just been released on BIS. The trio performed Beethoven Triple Concerto in the Mostly Mozart Festival in July and later this season they will make their debut at the Concertgebouw, where they will play two recitals.
Freddy Kempf is married and lives in London. | 
