Fort Macleod International Festival

Pianist Anton Kuerti was born in Austria, grew up in the United States, and has lived in Canada for the last 35 years. His teachers included Arthur Loesser, Mieczyslaw Horszowski, and Rudolf Serkin. At the age of 11 he performed the Grieg Concerto with Arthur Fiedler, and he was still a student when he won the famous Leventritt Award.

Anton Kuerti has toured 31 countries, including Japan, Russia, and most European countries, and has performed with most major North American orchestras and conductors, including the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony (Menuhin), Cleveland Orchestra (Szell), Philadelphia Orchestra (Ormandy), and the orchestras of Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and San Francisco. His vast repertoire includes some 50 concertos, including one he composed himself.

In Canada Kuerti has appeared in more than 140 communities from coast to coast, and has played with every professional orchestra, including over 30 concerts with the Toronto Symphony. As a chamber musician, he has performed the major repertoire with such artists as Gidon Kremer, Yo-Yo Ma, Janos Starker, Barry Tuckwell, and the Cleveland, Guarneri, and Tokyo string quartets.

Kuerti is one of today’s most recorded artists: compact discs of his performances include all the Beethoven concertos and sonatas, the Schubert sonatas, the Brahms concertos, and works by many other composers. These recordings air almost daily on the CBC.

Kuerti is an Officer of the Order of Canada and has received several honourary doctorates.