persons' index (L)

pianist, conductor, composer; b. 28th April 1981 in Poznań. Among his first piano teachers were Teresa Pisarska-Wietrzyńska, Halina Czerny Stefańska, Regina Smendzianka, and Wiktor Mierżanów. He graduated from the piano class of Piotr Paleczny at the Academy of Music in Warsaw. He also studied piano at the Hochschule fur Musik und Theater in Hanover, and conducting at the Tokyo University of the Arts “Geidai”. The pianist lives permanently in Japan since 2010, dividing his time between Tokyo and Warsaw.

He was a scholarship holder of the German DAAD, the Crescendum Est-Polonia Foundation of Aleksander Gudzowaty, the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) and the Yamaha Foundation as the winner of the national piano competition in Warsaw in 2002.

As a pianist, Lisiecki specializes in the interpretation of contemporary music. He has performed for the first time in Poland and Japan works representing the latest contemporary trends, including Dichotomie by Esa-Pekka Salonen, as well as rarely performed compositions, such as Paweł Klecki’s Three Preludes, Op. 4, Roman Palester's Piano Sonata No. 1, or Leonard Bernstein's Piano Sonata. He was also the first to perform works dedicated to him, including Paweł Hendrich’s Gliptopalinomia. In addition to contemporary music, he often performs Romantic repertoire, including a complete set of piano works by Robert Schumann.

Piano transcriptions of orchestral and organ works also play an important role in the pianist’s professional activity. 2011 marked the world premiere of his original Paraphrase on Adagietto from Fifth Symphony commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Gustav Mahler’s death during a recital in Sayaka Hall in Osaka. In 2012, he recorded Fantasy on Chorale Prelude, a piece inspired by Johannes Brahms’ chorale prelude.

In November 2012, Ignacy Lisiecki made his debut in Tokyo Opera City, one of the world’s most significant concert halls. Since then, he has been regularly performing in Japan with outstanding orchestras like the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra. He has also played recitals in Sumida Triphony Hall and Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, to name a few. In 2017, Lisiecki gave a performance in a popular programme dedicated to classical music “Daimei no nai Ongakukai”, broadcast continuously since 1969 by TV Asahi. It was the first comprehensive presentation of Szymanowski's work in Japanese media, featuring the composer's Violin Sonata, Op. 9 performed by Lisiecki together with Japanese violinist Kazuki Sawa. The same year the first monographic lecture and concert in Japan devoted to Szymanowski's work was held in connection with the celebration of the composer's 80th death anniversary, organised by Lisiecki in cooperation with PWM and the Tokyo University of Fine Arts “Geidai”.

Lisiecki performs frequently with philharmonic orchestras in Poland. He has played with various conductors, including Mirosław Jacek Błaszczyk, Jose Maria Florencio, Tadeusz Strugała, Norichika Iimori and Ken Takaseki, in prestigious concert halls like the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, the seat of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic in Łódź, or the Polish Theatre in Poznań. For several years, Ignaz Lisiecki has cooperated regularly with David Geringas, a legendary Lithuanian cellist. He has also collaborated with the String quartet of the Konzerthaus Berlin.

His first record, Homage to Brahms released in 2013, was well received by the media. It was covered by "Newsweek", "Wprost", "Polskie Radio", the Swiss public "Radio RTS", American "Fanfare Magazine", and Japanese magazine "Ongaku no Tomo", to name a few. Polish Music Publishing House (PWM) has invited Ignacy Lisiecki to record Alexandre Tansman’s 7 Piano preludes as part of a phonographic project which is a compilation of a hundred most intriguing works of Polish music in the past century (1918-2018). His next CD album Swan Song was released in 2019 by Sony Music, featuring a selection of last works written by Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner.

In 2011, Ignacy Lisiecki was awarded a diploma of the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage for outstanding achievements in promoting Polish culture in the world.

updated: 2020 (ac)