Piano Recital Kalle Randalu

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Piano sonata N° 8 in c minor op. 13 "Pathétique"
Piano sonata N° 23 in f minor op. 57 "Appassionata"
Piano sonata N° 29 in B flat major op. 106 "Hammerklavier"

Prof. Dr. h. c. Kalle Randalu Klavier

Biography

Kalle Randalu was born in Estonia, where he also grew up. His teacher in Tallinn was Bruno Lukk, himself still a student of Paul Hindemith and Leonid Kreutzer in Berlin. After his education at the Tallinn Conservatory, Kalle Randalu moved to the Moscow Conservatory in the master class of Lev Vlassenko. In 1971 he won first prize at the Competition for Young Pianists in Czechoslovakia, and in 1976 at the All-Union Competition in Tallinn. In 1981 he was a prize-winner at the Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau, in 1982 at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and in 1985 first prize-winner at the ARD Competition in Munich. He has lived in Germany since 1988. As a professor of piano, he teaches at the Karlsruhe University of Music, after having held the same position at the Freiburg University of Music.
Kalle Randalu has given concerts in many important music centers worldwide. Solo recitals have taken him to Munich's Herkulessaal, Vienna's Konzerthaus and St. Petersburg's Philharmonic Hall. His repertoire of works with orchestra includes most of the major piano concertos. He has already performed Beethoven's five piano concertos and the Choral Fantasy several times, on two evenings each. Among the orchestras with which he has performed are the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, the Bavarian State Opera, the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the BBC Symphony Orchestra London, the St. Petersburg and Moscow Philharmonic Orchestras, the Finnish Radio Orchestra, the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, the chamber orchestras in Baden-Württemberg, the Slovak Chamber Orchestra, the Ostrobotnian Chamber Orchestra, and other orchestras in the Baltic countries. Kalle Randalu has performed with numerous conductors, including Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Peeter Lilje and Arvo Volmer, as well as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Mariss Jansons, Natan Rachlin, Maxim Shostakovich, Jörg Faerber, Jac van Steen and Kazushi Ono, and with Juha Kangas, Osmo Vänskä and Leif Segerstam. A long and fruitful collaboration connects him with the Estonian National Orchestra Tallinn, with whom he played classical concerts, but also created many Estonian works. Close contacts with contemporary Estonian composers have led to numerous dedications and premieres.
His special love is chamber music. With the Ensemble Villa Musica he gave numerous concerts with a wide repertoire spectrum. His musical partners have included the Trio di Clarone with Sabine and Wolfgang Meyer and Reiner Wehle. Kalle Randalu has recorded over 40 CDs to date. His complete recording of Paul Hindemith's sonatas on seven CDs has been a sensational success, winning the coveted Cannes Classical Award and the ''Echo-Klassik''. Also outstanding are the recordings of the five piano concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven and the two concertos by Johannes Brahms with the Estonian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Järvi.
Kalle Randalu holds an honorary doctorate from the Estonian Academy of Music.