Nicolas Horvath
Nicolas Horvath on the Santiago Pilgrimage
Background information
Born	(1977-08-11) August 11, 1977
Instrument(s)	Piano
Labels	Naxos Records
Website	nicolashorvath.com

Nicolas Horvath (born 1977, in Monaco) is a French pianist and electroacoustic composer.

Education

At 10, Nicolas Horvath was selected for a program initiated by Monaco's Princess Grace for children with musical predispositions. He received the Academie de Musique Prince Rainier III Prize unanimously with the congratulations of the jury.

At the age of 15, during an Academie de Musique Prince Rainier III competition, he was discovered by the conductor Lawrence Foster who obtained a scholarship from Princess Grace Foundation allowing him to work for three consecutive summers at Aspen Music Festival and School with Gabriel Chodos. On his return, he worked for two years with Gérard Frémy who introduced him to contemporary music.

In 1998, he joined the École Normale de Musique in Paris. Beginning in 2002 he worked for four years with Bruno Leonardo Gelber and Germaine Deveze who asked him not to give any concert or participate in any competition during his apprenticeship. Then he left l'École Normale. In 2004, he joined Gino Favotti's electroacoustic composition class where he received masterclasses from François Bayle and Christian Zanési and in 2006 Christine Groult's electroacoustic composition class.

From 2008 to 2011, he won numerous international competitions such as the Luigi Nono Competition, Alexander Scriabin, Osaka, Fukuoka, Yokohama. In 2010, he joined the Oxana Yablonskaya Piano School and The International Certificate for Piano Artists. Meetings with Leslie Howard, Gabriel Tacchino, Philippe Entremont, and Éric Heidsieck, mark his career.

Career

Nicolas Horvath collaborates with composers such as Régis Campo, Denis Levaillant, Jaan Rääts, Tõnu Kõrvits, Alvin Curran, Fabio Mengozzi, William Susman, Alp Durmaz, Andre Bangambula Vindu, Mamoru Fujieda ... he ensures the creation of pieces of more than two hundred composers and more than a hundred pieces are dedicated to him. Nicolas Horvath also plays little-known works such as Franz Liszt's Christus, Claude Debussy's The Fall of the House of Usher, the complete version of Erik Satie's The Son of the Stars as well as forgotten, neglected composers such as Moondog, Hélène de Montgeroult, Ludovic Lamothe, Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, Friedrich Kalkbrenner, Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Nobuo Uematsu, Charles-Valentin Alkan, Karl August Hermann...

Nicolas Horvath stands out by organizing marathon concerts such as Erik Satie's Vexations which he performed 12 times alone and without any stop or break, the Nights of Minimalist Piano^[1] and the complete Erik Satie or Philip Glass piano music.

On April 21, 2012, with Andrea Clanetti Santarossa, they did in Monaco's Entrepot Gallery the very first Monacan happening on La Monte Young music. Some of the audience was scandalized by it and left the gallery shouting.^[2]

On December 12, 2012, he gave in Paris's museum Palais de Tokyo a non-stop solo version of 35 hours of Erik Satie's Vexations. Starting December 12 at noon and ending December 13 at 11 pm.^[3]

From the June 23 to July 27, 2013, he was invited by the DO NOT OPEN Gallery in Brussels to give his first exhibit, highly influenced by Clyfford Still & Hermann Nitsch^[4]

On April 11, 2014, in the Palais de Tokyo, he premiered the GlassWorlds, a gigantic Philip Glass Homage where 120 composers from 56 countries and all musical genres wrote a work for this program.^[5]

On January 9, 2015, in Carnegie Hall, New York, he premiered the Complete 20 Philip Glass Etudes.^[6]

On October 10 to 12, 2015, in Paris's Le Grand Rex, for the 1st encore of Danny Elfman's anniversary concert, Nicolas Horvath was in duet with the composer himself to perform Elfman's Oogie Boogie's song.

On October 31, 2015, The Gallery of Estonia (the Estonian pavilion) as part of the Milan World Expo closing day invited him to give the first Jaan Rääts music only recital.^[7]

On May 25, 2016, he gave a Jaan Rääts recital at Strasbourg European Parliament for the inauguration Ceremony of Estonia at the lead of the Council of Europe.^[8]

On the night of October 1 to 2, 2016, at the Paris Philharmonie Boulez Hall, he performed a twelve-hour-long marathon of piano works by Philip Glass.^[9]

In April 2017, he requested to all Jaan Rääts' students, such as Erkki-Sven Tüür, Tõnu Kõrvits, Timo Steiner, Kerri Kotta ... to compose each of them an exclusive piece for an all-Estonia Jaan Rääts Homage tour (for the 85th anniversary of composer).^[10]

On March 18, 2018, he gave a world premiere in Nantes during the Festival Variations the complete piano music of Erik Satie.^[11]

On March 24, 2018, he was invited by the Labenche Museum in Brive-la-Gaillarde to give a Claude Debussy recital for his centenary on the composer's last piano. During this concert Nicolas Horvath premiered Claude Debussy works completed by the musicologist Robert Orledge.^[12]

On September 9, 2018, he gave the world premiere of Moondog 's Complete Book of Canons n°1, 2 & 3 and The Great Canon in Toulouse for the Opening Concert of the Moondog Season and for the Piano aux Jacobins Festival.^[13]

On April 28, 2019, he was the first pianist ever to perform in a single concert and without any break all 15 Karlheinz Stockhausen's Klavierstuke for solo piano in Nantes for the Variations Festival.^[14]

On May 17 and 18, 2019, he was selected by Philip Glass himself to perform Glass' Etudes nos. 13 and 14 during the Philip Glass & Friends concerts at the Philharmonie de Paris.^[15]

Discography

Publications

References

External links

• Official website.
• Bandcamp page.
• GlassWorlds project official website.
• Naxos' Nicolas Horvath artist page.
• Discogs page.
• Steinway Artists' Nicolas Horvath minisite.
• French Interview.
• English Interview.