Martin Kasik, Piano

Biography

Martin Kasík is a native of Prague, Czech Republic where he currently lives. He is known and respected in many countries for his musical artistic expression. Stefan M. Dettlinger, music writer for the German publication Schwetzinger Zeitung, stated “he does not only play, he lives and is what he plays”. Mr. Kasík’s performance of the Piano Concerto no. 2 by Franz Liszt in Prague’s Dvořák Hall prompted Hana Jaroklímkova of Hudební rozhledy to comment “despite absolute concentration, his play is perfectly relaxed, technically brilliant and expressively very sophisticated in all details, just sovereign”. Perhaps Czech music writer Karla Hofmannova of Hudební rozhledy summed up his formidable talent best by writing “his energy is inexhaustible, his immersion in the musical message is absolute and his spiritual contact with the audience was so powerful that the visitors could hardly breathe”.

Martin Kasík won First Prize at the 1999 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, the 1999 Akzo Nobel Prize, the 2000 Alexander Kasza-Kasser Prize of Young Concert Artists, and the 2000 Davidoff Prize. 

The New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Sun-Timeshave praised his performances. Kasík has performed other critically-acclaimed concerts with (to name a few) the Chicago Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the New York Chamber Symphony, and abroad with the Singapore Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.

In recital, he has appeared at the New York 92nd Street Y, Washington’s Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, and London’s Wigmore Hall. 

In 2004 he toured Japan and Taiwan with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2005 he toured the United States with the Prague Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of beloved Czech composer Antonín Dvořák.