Rafał Blechacz

Rafał Blechacz (* June 30, 1985 in Nakel ) is a Polish pianist.

He began at the age of five years playing the piano and attended with 8 years of the State Artur Rubinstein Music School in Bydgoszcz. In May 2007, he completed his studies at the Music Academy in Bydgoszcz Feliks Nowowiejski with Prof. Katarzyna Popova - Zydron.

Since 1996 he has been awarded several competitions. Inter alia he finished second in the Rubinstein Memorial Competition for Young Pianists in Bydgoszcz in 2002 and at the 5th International Piano Competition in Hamamatsu, Japan, in 2003. 2004 he won the 4th International Piano Competition in Rabat, Morocco. On 21 October 2005 Blechacz won the first pole since Krystian Zimerman in 1975 the major International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, which was held this year for the fifteenth time since 1927. For the first time in the history of the competition no second prize was awarded to make the distance clearly. The six best otherwise get a price.

His debut CD with the 24 Preludes by Chopin appeared in late November 2007 for Deutsche Grammophon and in 2008 was awarded the Echo Klassik. His second CD, released in October 2008, under the motto " Sonatas " and each includes a sonata by Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart. Following the overwhelming success of his first two albums, he decided on the occasion of the approaching Chopin year ( 2010) to publish photographs of the two Chopin piano concertos, the third solo album ( September 2009). In 2008, elected to the world's finest orchestras Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, headed by Jerzy Semkow accompanied him here. For this recording Blechacz was awarded eV in December 2010, an annual award of the prize by the German Record Critics.