On 15 September, Olga Kern will give a solo recital at the Kodály Centre in Pécs, which will also serve as the opening concert of the 2026 Liszt Ferenc International Piano Competition. Alongside works by Beethoven, Schumann, Gershwin, Tchaikovsky, Scriabin and Balakirev, she will once again perform works by her favourite composer, Rachmaninoff: Moments musicaux, Études-tableaux and Polichinelle. From 15 to 20 September, Pécs will host the Liszt Ferenc International Piano Competition, with Olga Kern serving as president of the international jury.

From competition winner to jury president

At the age of 51, Olga Kern’s career was decisively shaped by her victory at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Texas. Named after the legendary American pianist Van Cliburn (1934–2013), the competition held in Fort Worth has become one of the world’s most prestigious piano competitions. Kern won the gold medal in 2001, becoming the first woman in more than three decades of the competition’s history to receive this distinction. The victory immediately launched her American and international concert career.

Competitions have remained an important part of her professional life ever since. From participant she gradually became a jury member, jury president, and later the artistic director of an international piano competition bearing her own name. In 2016, she became president of the jury of the Cliburn International Amateur Piano Competition, a forum for highly accomplished non-professional pianists from around the world. In the same year, she founded the Olga Kern International Piano Competition, where she serves not only as jury president but also as artistic director.

For Olga Kern, piano competitions are not simply “sporting achievements”. An international piano competition requires extraordinary concentration and places enormous psychological demands on young musicians: within a short period of time, they must prepare and perform a large repertoire at the highest possible level, with every appearance carrying significant consequences. Yet Kern emphasises that competitions offer far more than a final result. They provide young artists with performance opportunities, international connections, valuable experience and, potentially, the first step towards an international concert career.

Her own career is a powerful example of this journey: her path to the international stage began through competition success and later led her to become a jury member and jury president. The primary aim of the Olga Kern International Piano Competition is not competition itself, but supporting young pianists and helping them build an international career. Since 2022, the competition has been a member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions. Alongside her jury responsibilities, Olga Kern regularly gives masterclasses to support young musicians and has been a professor at the Manhattan School of Music in New York since 2017.

A lifelong connection with Rachmaninoff

If competitions have played a defining role in Olga Kern’s career, her connection with her compatriot Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) is even more personal. At the age of seventeen, she won the Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition, and throughout her career she has repeatedly returned to the composer’s music in both concerts and recordings.

Sergei Rachmaninoff was one of the final great figures of the Romantic piano tradition: a world-renowned composer and an exceptional pianist, renowned for his own interpretations of his works. His piano concertos and solo compositions present extraordinary technical challenges while demanding profound musical expression, lyrical depth and a remarkable sense of architecture.

Olga Kern has often spoken about how deeply Rachmaninoff’s music affected her from childhood. Her mother, who was also a pianist, listened to Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos during pregnancy, meaning that the composer’s music was present in Kern’s life from the earliest moments. This extraordinary personal connection has resulted in numerous concerts and recordings over the decades.

A highlight of Kern’s discography is the album Rachmaninoff: Transcriptions / Corelli Variations, released by Harmonia Mundi in 2004, which received a Grammy nomination. In 2023, marking the 150th anniversary of Rachmaninoff’s birth, she created a special programme with the Austin Symphony Orchestra featuring all four of Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos as well as the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

An artist celebrated worldwide

Olga Kern’s concerts and recordings have received enthusiastic recognition from leading international music publications. The British magazine Gramophone, which has been published for more than a century, wrote that “her phenomenal gifts could hardly be more evident.” Washington Post critic Ronald Broun described Kern’s playing as radiating an almost “electrical charge”, with the energy of the music transformed through her performance into “a distinctive, fresh force”. The New York Times has also presented her as one of the most exciting pianists of our time.

These outstanding reviews underline the significance of Olga Kern’s Budapest orchestral concert, her Pécs solo recital, and her role as president of the jury of the Liszt Ferenc International Piano Competition. Her visit represents an important event not only for Hungarian musical life, but also for strengthening the international connections of the Hungarian music scene.

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