Clarinet superstar Martin Fröst has been described as having “a virtuosity and a musicianship unsurpassed by any clarinettist, perhaps any instrumentalist, in recent memory.” In 2014 he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize, one of the world’s highest musical honours,

In Korean, the name “Bomsori” basically means “the sound of spring,” but professionally, the violinist Bomsori Kim has earned the nickname “Competition Huntress.” Indeed, she has won a long list of competitions, including the 62nd ARD International Music Competition, the

Konstantin Lifschitz stunned the international music scene with his recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 1994. The recording received a Grammy nomination and was celebrated as the most convincing Bach interpretation since Glenn Gould. Critics praised his “joy and energy

Olga Maria Elisabeth Frederike Schwarzkopf was born in Jarocin near Poznán, then Germany, now Poland, on 9 December 1915. She was to become the pre-eminent female lieder singer of the post-war decades and an operatic artist “in whom personal beauty,

In the years preceding World War II, Bohuslav Martinů was a much-respected composer experimenting with jazz, folk, and avant-garde creations in Paris. Forced to flee to the United States in 1940, he soon became the living composer whose works were

When Johannes Brahms first met Richard Wagner in 1863 he played his Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24 for the prophet of the “Artwork of the Future.” The work sounds like an impressive catalogue of variation

Krystian Zimerman is one of the rare cult figures among pianists today. In fact, there are not enough superlatives to describe his pianism, or what he calls “the art of organising emotions in time.” Anything he touches reveals infinite expressive

Maria Anna Cecilia Sofia Kalogeropoulos, better known as Maria Callas, was born on 2 December 1923 in New York City. She was the daughter of Greek immigrant parents, and her father shortened his surname to “Kakos” and subsequently to “Callas,”