Biography

Marian Lapsansky is one of those seemingly ubiquitous pianists who not only performs regularly as soloist, recitalist, and chamber music collaborator, but appears on numerous recordings in a wide range of repertory, often in collections with multiple artists and works. He has played with some of the leading Czech and Slovak conductors of the day, including Jirí Belohlávek, Bystrik Rezucha, Zdenek Kosler, and Libor Pesek and has won several competitions and recording prizes. He has also been active as a teacher. Lapsansky's repertory is broad, taking in the disparate likes of Schumann, Grieg, Prokofiev, Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel, and Franck, as well as Czech and Slovak composers such as Dvorák, Janácek, Barta, and especially Zdenek Fibich. Lapsansky has recorded for many labels, including Supraphon and Naxos. Lapsansky was born in Tisovec, Slovakia, on August 21, 1947. His student résumé is long and impressive: he began music studies in 1956 with Jaroslav Brzák (piano) and Leopold Krull (violin); later he studied violin (1960-1962) with Vojtech Minornár; from 1962-1968 he studied piano at the Bratislava Conservatory with Roman Rychla, and at the Prague Academy of Music and Drama (1968-1973) with piano icons Frantisek Maxián and Jan Panenka. He spent the next year at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow studying with piano virtuoso and keyboard pedagogue Viktor Merzhanov. In 1970 Lapsansky won the International Smetana Competition in Hradec Králové, Czechoslovakia. From 1976-1979 he concertized regularly with the Kosice State Philharmonic Orchestra, and shortly thereafter began making appearances with the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1983 he performed duo-piano repertory with Czech pianist Peter Toperczer. During the next two decades Lapsansky made appearances in the major cities in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Africa, and with front-rank orchestras in Tokyo, Berlin, Dresden, Sofia, Prague, and elsewhere. In 1994 he began recording exclusively for Supraphon Records. Among his major achievements in the recording studio was the completion in 1997 of a massive collection of solo piano works by Fibich -- Moods, Impressions and Reminiscences -- issued on a 12-CD set. As a teacher Lapsansky has also been quite active: a faculty member at the Bratislava Academy of Music from 1987, he began teaching at the Prague Academy of Music in 1997, then joined the faculties of the Music Academy in Banská Bystrica in 2001 and the Janácek Academy of Music in 2002. Lapsansky's 2007 schedule included concerts in Bratislava, Istanbul, and Malaga.