Dang Thai Son

Đặng Thái Sơn (born July 2, 1958 in Hanoi, Vietnam) is a Vietnamese Canadian classical pianist. He was the Gold Medalist of the Tenth International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland in 1980. It was the first time that a top international competition was won by an Asian pianist.

Dang Thai Son has received particular acclaim for the sonority and poetry in his interpretations of music of Chopin and the French repertoire.

Dang began studying the piano in Hanoi with his mother, Madame Thai Thi Lien, then a professor at the Vietnam National Academy of Music. He was discovered by a Russian pianist, Isaac Katz, on a visit to Vietnam in 1974, who helped him to pursue his advanced training at the Moscow Conservatory in Russia. In Moscow, he studied with Vladimir Natanson, a pupil of Samuil Feinberg, and subsequently with Dmitri Bashkirov.

He was awarded the First Prize and Gold Medal at the Tenth International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, as well as the special prizes for the best performances of a Mazurka, a Polonaise, and a Concerto, although the elimination of Ivo Pogorelić in the third round - leading to the Argentine pianist Martha Argerich quitting the jury in protest - somewhat overshadowed Dang's award.

Dang has performed in more than 40 countries and on concert stages such as Lincoln Center, Barbican Center (London), Salle Pleyel (Paris), Herculessaal (Munich), Musikverein (Vienna), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Sydney Opera House (Sydney) and Suntory Hall (Tokyo). Dang has been featured with orchestras including the St Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Czech Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Oslo Philharmonic, Warsaw National Philharmonic, Hungarian State Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Russian National Symphony, as well as Virtuosi of Moscow, Sinfonia Varsovia, Vienna Chamber, Zurich Chamber, Royal Swedish Chamber Orchestras, and many more. He has also appeared under the direction of world-class conductors, from Sir Neville Marriner and Pinchas Zukerman to Mariss Jansons, Paavo Järvi, Iván Fischer, Frans Brüggen, Vladimir Spivakov, Dimitri Kitaenko, James Loughram, Jiri Belohlavek, Hiroyuki Iwaki, Ken-Ichiro Kobayashi, Pavel Kogan, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Sakari Oramo, and John Nelson.

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