The pianist prodigy in concert in Angers

It was in the world that he marked the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games, July 26, 2024. On the Léopold-Sédar-Senghor gateway which spans the Seine, he played that evening in the rain a piece of Ravel in the predestined name, Water games . But it was five years earlier, in Moscow, that the real glory day of Alexandre Kantorow arrived.

At 22, he became the first Frenchman to win the Grail des Pianistes, the first prize in the Tchaikovski international competition. A deserved consecration for this prodigy, son of a couple of professional violinists (Kathryn Dean and Jean-Jacques Kantorow) who chose to become a pianist at 4 years old, looking at an episode of Tom and Jerry in which the first named interpreted the Hungarian Rhapsody N ° 2 from Liszt. Benefiting from the informed opinions of his father, who is also conductor, and several fairies leaning over his cradle, he tames the instrument. Very quickly the octaves have no secrets for him.

A rain of praise

“He taught me that the details made the difference,” recalls the young man by evoking his master Igor Lazko whose class he joined at the Paris Conservatory at 13. Three years later, in 2013, he participated as a soloist in the Folle Day of Nantes. The criticism praises its outstanding technical mastery and its flamboyant interpretations. “Reincarnation of Liszt” for the American magazine Fanfare, “Michelangelo of the piano” for the Russian Rena Shereshevskaya who was his teacher … Soon, the whole world is tearing it away. And so as not to spoil anything, he is also a prophet in his country with, in his credit, three victories of classical music. Faced with so many praise, the young man, who could have had the big head, shines by his humility, adoring updated to the idea that he can “arrive, playing, touching people”.

His story with the Pianopolis festival (1) started from the launch of the Angevin meeting in 2023, when he agreed to be the artistic director. Two years later, although freshly returned from a tour in Asia, he will still be there. While he had devoted his latest album to Brahms and Schubert (2), this time it is Messiaen’s works, Beethoven, Strauss, Mendelssohn whom he will play in trio with violinist Liya Petrova and the cellist Aurélien Pascal, in front of festival -goers lucky to be able to attend. Music, Maestro!