Dejan Lazić © Lin Gothoni

Dejan Lazić

Dejan Lazić's refreshing interpretations of the piano repertoire make him one of the most exceptional artists of his generation. Der Spiegel wrote about Lazić's Liszt recording for Onyx Classics (April 2017): "Grandiosely dexterous, committed and shrewd, yet full of depth: this longitudinal section through Liszt's oeuvre is a gift, for beginners and connoisseurs alike." In autumn 2017, during a tour with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and Gordan Nikolić, Lazić recorded Beethoven's own arrangement of his Violin Concerto as the Piano Concerto in D major, op. 61a. This CD was released in May 2018 by Onyx Classics. Lazić's live recording of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Kirill Petrenko was awarded the "Echo Klassik" in 2009, and a CD of Beethoven's Triple Concerto was released by Sony Music in 2015. He has released numerous CDs on Channel Classics, including the critically acclaimed "Liaisons" series. His recording of Mozart's chamber works, released on Onyx 2020, was awarded the "Opus Klassik 2021" in the category "Chamber Music Recording". In the 2021/2022 season, Dejan Lazić will be Artist in Residence with the Munich Radio Orchestra of the BR, he will undertake a concert tour with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer. Other highlights include his return invitations to the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Mainly Mozart Festival, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Philarmonie Zuidnederland, Residentie Orkest and Vienna Chamber Orchestra. Lazić will work with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Michael Francis, Marzena Diakun, Krzysztof Urbański, Daniel Raiskin and Jan Willem de Vriend. Chamber concerts and recitals take him to festivals such as the Gstaad Menuhin Festival with chamber music partners such as Sol Gabetta, Andreas Ottensamer and Benjamin Schmid. Dejan Lazić performs with orchestras such as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Kammerorchester Basel, MDR-Sinfonieorchester, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He regularly tours with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. Concert tours also take him regularly to Asia, where he appeared on a tour of China with the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Iván Fischer. He also performs with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. He has enjoyed a good and long-standing collaboration with conductors such as Giovanni Antonini, Iván Fischer, Michael Francis, Andris Nelsons, Thomas Søndergård, Robert Spano, John Storgårds, Krzysztof Urbański, Jan Willem de Vriend and Kazuki Yamada. Dejan Lazić is also active as a composer. He has been under contract with Sikorski Music Publishers since 2015. His arrangement of Brahms' Violin Concerto for piano and orchestra was premiered in 2009 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Robert Spano and published by Sikorski. He has performed it at the BBC Proms, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Chopin Festival Warsaw, Hamburg Ostertöne, North and South America and Japan, among others. He has performed his "Piano Concerto in Istrian Style", op. 18, several times since its premiere at the Aspen Music Festival in 2014. In April 2017, his tone poem "Mozart and Salieri" (inspired by Alexander Pushkin), op. 21, was premiered by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Krzysztof Urbański. Lazić's cadenzas to Beethoven's Piano Concertos Nos. 1-4 and to Haydn's Piano Concertos Nos. 4 & 11 have also been published, and his most recent Mozart arrangement, "Rondo Concertante" for piano and orchestra (based on the 3rd movement from the Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 333) received its world premiere in June 2018 at the Mainly Mozart Festival in San Diego, USA, with the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra and Michael Francis. With four colleagues, Lazić composed the work "The Trout Pond", which was premiered in October 2018 as well as recorded on CD and can be heard at various festivals in Germany this autumn. Lazić is currently working on his "Chinese Fantasy" for violin and orchestra, op. 22. His "S.C.H.E.rzo" for orchestra, op. 25, commissioned by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, was premiered by ebendem (conducted by Krzysztof Urbański) in January 2020.  Dejan Lazić was born in Zagreb, Croatia, into a family of musicians. He grew up in Salzburg, where he studied at the Mozarteum (clarinet, piano and composition). His early encounter with Zoltán Kocsis and Imre Rohmann at the Bartók Festival in Hungary was decisive for his artistic development, and he also received important impulses from Peter Eötvös there. Today Dejan Lazić lives in Amsterdam.