Lars Vogt

Steinway Artist Lars Vogt (1970 - 2022) established himself as one of the leading musicians of our time. Born in the German town of Düren in 1970, he first came to public attention when he won second prize at the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition and has enjoyed a varied career for over thirty years. His versatility as an artist ranged from the music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, to the romantics Schumann, Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov, through to 20th Century works such as the dazzling Lutosławski concerto.

In addition to his high-profile career as a pianist, Lars Vogt appeared regularly as a conductor and took up the mantle of Music Director of Orchestre de chambre de Paris in July 2020. In the 2021/22 season he curated his own series with the orchestra in Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Pierre Boulez Salle, and toured the orchestra. Following a very successful five-year tenure as Music Director with the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and later as the RNS Principal Artistic Partner, he developed a strong international profile with concerts in Amsterdam, Vienna, Budapest and Istanbul, and regular visits to French and German summer festivals.

Lars was featured as Artist in Residence with Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern both as conductor and pianist, and concerto engagements include the Concertgebouworkest and St Louis Symphony and hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt orchestras.

Previous conducting collaborations include Zürcher Kammerorchester, Camerata Salzburg, Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Niedersächsische Staatsorchester Hannover, Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester, Warsaw Philharmonic, and the Sydney, Singapore and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras. In May 2019 he undertook a highly acclaimed tour of Germany and France leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra with concerts in Berlin, Frankfurt and Paris.

During his prestigious career Lars has played with many of the world’s great orchestras including the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Berliner Philharmoniker, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Staatskapelle Dresden, Wiener Philharmoniker, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra. He has collaborated with some of the world’s most renowned conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Harding, Mariss Jansons, Paavo Järvi, Andris Nelsons, Sir Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski and Robin Ticciati. His special relationship with the Berliner Philharmoniker has continued with regular collaborations following his appointment as their first ever “Pianist in Residence” in the 2003/04 season.

Lars enjoys a high profile as a chamber musician and in June 1998 he founded his own chamber festival in the village of Heimbach near Cologne. Known as Spannungen, the concerts take place in an art-nouveau hydro-electric power station. Its huge success has been marked by the release of several live recordings on the CAvi and EMI labels. In addition to Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff, Lars has enjoyed regular partnerships with colleagues such as Thomas Quasthoff, Ian Bostridge and Julian Pregardian and collaborates with actor Klaus-Maria Brandauer and comedian Konrad Beikircher.

An exponent of contemporary music, Lars worked regularly with high-profile composers and has premiered works by Thomas Larcher, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Kryštof Mařatka and Volker David Kirchner.

A prolific recording artist, Lars works closely with the label Ondine, with whom solo releases have included his OPUS KLASSIK 2021 Award winning release of works by Janáček, and Bach’s Goldberg Variations which had unprecedented success in download charts. His orchestral recordings for Ondine with the Royal Northern Sinfonia of the complete Beethoven and Brahms concertos directed from the keyboard received wide critical acclaim. Chamber collaborations feature prominently in Lars’ discography and include Brahms, Mozart and Schumann sonatas with Christian Tetzlaff, as well as the GRAMMY nominated Brahms’ piano trios with Tanja Tetzlaff. In earlier years as an EMI recording artist, Lars made over ten discs with the label including with the Berliner Philharmoniker/Claudio Abbado and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle.

A passionate advocate of making music an essential life force in the community, in 2005 Lars established a major educational programme Rhapsody in School which brings his colleagues to schools across Germany and Austria, thereby connecting children with inspiring world-class musicians. He was also an accomplished and enthusiastic teacher and in 2013 was appointed Professor of Piano at the Hannover Conservatory of Music, succeeding Karl-Heinz Kämmerling, his former teacher and close friend. 

Photo: Neda Navaee