Featured Composer

Featured Composer: Anton Kuerti

“Anton Kuerti, with awe-inspiring interpretive and technical prowess, confirmed his position as one of the top-ranked pianists today.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

ANTON KUERTI is one of the world’s most brilliant pianists. Born in Austria, he and his parents, both scientists and amateur musicians, moved to Rochester N. Y. just before the outbreak of WWII. At the age of nine Anton performed his first concert and at eleven, performed the Grieg Piano Concerto with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops.

His teachers included Horszowski, Loesser and Serkin. While still a student, he won the prestigious Leventritt Award. In 1965, for political reasons, Anton Kuerti moved to Canada and has lived in Toronto ever since. He has been Associate Professor
and Artist in Residence at the University of Toronto.

Mr. Kuerti has performed throughout much of the world. His vast repertoire includes 50 concertos (including one he composed himself ) which he has performed with most of the leading U.S. and Canadian orchestras. As chamber musician he has performed with such well known musicians as Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, Janos Starker, and the Cleveland, Colorado, Guarneri, St. Lawrence and Tokyo Quartets. Anton Kuerti is one of today’s most recorded artists. His discography includes the complete Beethoven Sonatas; Brahms Concertos and piano pieces; and works by Schumann, Scriabin, and Czerny, including a world premiere recording of two of Czerny’s works for violin and piano.

Mr. Kuerti created the world’s first Carl Czerny Music festival, proving that Czerny is not just a composer of brilliant finger exercises, but a composer of great merit.
Anton Kuerti is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a recipient of several honorary doctorates.