10 Facts About Freddy Kempf

Frederick Albert Kempf was born on 14 October 1977 and is a British pianist born in Croydon to a German father and a Japanese mother.

Freddy Kempf was educated at The Junior Kings School and St Edmund's School, Canterbury and the Royal Academy of Music.

In 1987, Freddy Kempf won the first National Mozart Competition in England and in 1992, was named BBC Young Musician of the Year for his performance of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Freddy Kempf won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1996 which led to his New York City recital debut at Carnegie Hall.

Apparently, some judges had wanted to award the first prize jointly to Matsuev and Freddy Kempf, and had successfully negotiated with the Russian Culture Ministry for the additional funding.

However, Freddy Kempf only collected the third prize in the end, which provoked a barrage of indignant protests from both the audience and the Russian press, who accused some of the judges of bias, especially towards contestants who happened to be their former pupils.

Freddy Kempf's popularity has been compared with that garnered by American pianist Van Cliburn who, in a different result in 1958, had won the inaugural competition.

Freddy Kempf has continued to perform solo, chamber and concertante music in Europe, the Americas, East Asia and Australia, and has recorded recital discs of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Schumann.

Freddy Kempf was voted Best Young British Classical Performer in the Classical BRIT Awards in 2001.

Bridle added, "At no time during our interview does Freddy Kempf seem more at ease than when talking about chamber music".