Justus Frantz is a German pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

, conductor, and television personality.

Life

Frantz began playing piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 at the age of four and later studied with Eliza Hansen and Wilhelm Kempff

Wilhelm Kempff

Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff was a German pianist and composer. Although his repertory included Bach, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well-known for his interpretations of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, both of whose complete sonatas he also...

 under a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes, or German National Scholarship Foundation. He and another man won second place in a competition by playing a duet for violoncello and piano. In 1967, he won an international musical competition hosted by a famous German television station. He first played with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

The Berlin Philharmonic, German: , formerly Berliner Philharmonisches Orchester , is an orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. In 2006, a group of ten European media outlets voted the Berlin Philharmonic number three on a list of "top ten European Orchestras", after the Vienna Philharmonic and the...

, conducted by Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

 in 1970. In 1975, he played in his U.S

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 debut concert with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, who became his lifelong friend. Other conductors with whom he has played include Carlo Maria Giulini

Carlo Maria Giulini

Carlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor.-Biography:Giulini was born in Barletta, Italy, to a father born in Lombardy and a mother born in Naples; but he was raised in Bolzano, which at the time of his birth was part of Austria...

 and Rudolf Kempe

Rudolf Kempe

Rudolf Kempe was a German conductor.- Biography :Kempe was born in Dresden, where from the age of fourteen he studied at the Dresden State Opera School. He played oboe in the opera orchestra of Dortmund and then in the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, from 1929...

. He founded the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival

Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival

The Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival is a classical music festival held every year in summer time all over the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany....

 in 1986 and became a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador

UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador

UNHCR Goodwill Ambassadors are celebrity representatives of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who use their talent and fame to advocate for refugees.-Current Ambassadors:...

 in 1989, a post from which he has since retired. He also founded the Philharmonia of the Nations in 1995.

He has two sons, Christopher Tainton, who he had with pianist Carol Tainton, and Justus Konstantin Frantz, who he had with Xenia Dubrowskaja.

Repertoire

Frantz mostly plays music from the Classical

Classicism

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

 and Romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 periods, particularly by Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

. He has played many pieces for piano duet or four hands with Christoph Eschenbach

Christoph Eschenbach

Christoph Eschenbach , born February 20, 1940, Breslau, Germany is a German-born pianist and conductor. He currently holds positions in Washington, D.C. as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and music director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.-Early...

.

External links

(Under construction)

• Biography
• http://archiv.handwerk-special.de/archiv/hw_spec/57_20.htm