Alexander Satz

Alexander Igorevich Satz ( _ru. Александр Игоревич Сац, "Aleksandr Igorevič Sats"; 1941 Moscow - 18 January 2007 [ [http://www.ram.ac.uk/study/selectadepartment/Piano/Alexander+Satz.htm Obituary] ] ) was a Russian pianist and educator.

Satz's musical career is quite unusual. He did not take up music in a professional way until the age of 14, when he started getting piano lessons of Leonid Brumberg (pupil and assistant of the legendary Heinrich Neuhaus). After only one year of intensive practice he was accepted in the Gnesin-School of Music for highly gifted children.

In 1956 he became student in the second year of the Gnesin Academy of Music in Moscow, where he graduated with distinction in 1963 and became professor of piano. It took him only eight years to become a full professor. He lived in Austria since 1991, where he was a professor at the Academy of Music and Fine Arts in Graz. He was also a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London since 1999. He held master-classes in many European countries and Australia.

Satz performed the former Soviet Union, Austria, Italy, France, England, Germany, the Netherlands and Taiwan. In chamber music, he played with well-known soloists such as D. Schafran or T. Gridenko, took part in festivals such as the Guidon-Kremer-Festival at Lockenhaus (Austria) and the Orlando Festival (Netherlands) and he also taught master-classes in chamber music within the European Mozart-Academy in Eastern Europe.

Famous pupils of Satz include Yevgeny Sudbin and Boris Berezovsky.

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