Piano
“Christopher Park is a pianist who captivates with his fascinating technical mastery, astounding musical maturity, and a particularly intense performance style” – this was the explanation given by the jury upon awarding Christopher Park the renowned Leonard Bernstein Award 2014. He thereby joined the ranks of noteworthy musicians such as Lang Lang, Lisa Batiashvili and Martin Grubinger, who all started their careers with this internationally sought-after award.
Numerous important ensembles have engaged Park, a Bamberg-born musician, including the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, both Frankfurt and North German Radio Symphony Orchestras, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Opera Orchestra, Magdeburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Spanish National Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Galicia, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, China
NCPA Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, Chambre Orchestra of Lausanne, English Chamber Orchestra, Munich Symphony Orchestra and Bamberg Symphony, to name but a few. In November 2014, Christopher Park stood in for Emanuel Ax to great success with the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, only a few months after his widely celebrated début in Hamburg.
So far he has worked with conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Jarvi, Sebastian Weigle, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Ion Marin, Zsolt Hamar, Roman Kofman, Nicholas Milton, Kimbo Ishii, Paul Daniel and Dimitri Kitaenko. He has given concerts in Europe, Asia, America and New Zealand and played at events including the Ravinia Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Klavierfestival Ruhr, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Quincena Musical de San Sebastián.
Christopher Park has been chosen as “Rising Star“ by the ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation). Therefore he debuted in Europe’s renowned concert halls in Barbican London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Musikverein & Konzerthaus Vienna, Konserthus Stockholm, Barcelona, Budapest, Lisboa and others.
Alongside his engagements as a soloist, for which he has gained recognition in the form of various scholarships and awards, he is passionately involved in chamber music. He made his début in the Brahms Saal of the Vienna Musikverein at the end of 2014 with the Küchl Quartet, which comprises members of the Vienna Philharmonic. After that the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra nominated him as their candidate for the Credit-Suisse Award. He has also played with Avi Avital, Pablo Ferrandez, Marc Bouchkov, Richard O’Neill, Leticia Moreno, Adolfo Gutiérrez Arenas, the Pavel-Haas Quartet and accompanied singers including Sumi Jo. He has collaborated with John Neumeier on various projects such as Stravinsky’s Petrushka Variations, Schumann’s Kinderszenen and suites by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Next to his solo albums with Deutsche Grammophon, his CD with works by Schumann, Stravinsky and Neuwirth is celebrated in European magazines as “brilliant recording” and “reference version”. It is released with Oehms Classics.
Christopher Park was influenced by two major musical traditions during his studies: the Russian school going back to Lev Oborin with Lev Natochenny as well as the German school of Wilhelm Kempff with Joachim Volkmann.
Park was teaching in Frankfurt/Germany at both, the Conservatory and the University of Music and Performing Arts. Since 2021 he holds a professorship at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.