"When I think of a warm, singing, velvet-like piano sound I always remember on Bechstein. A piano with a long and illustrious history and feisty present."
Stepan Simonian
When I think of a warm, singing, velvet-like piano sound I always remember on Bechstein. A piano with a long and illustrious history and feisty present. Bechtein was always a great part of my musical life, and I am happy to stay in close touch with this thoroughly worked-out, gracefully designed and passionately produced instruments, which help me to broaden the horizon of my piano sound image every time I meet Bechtein Concert Grand in a concert hall. If I would be asked to give a few terms for Bechstein Piano this would be Elegance, Taste and Grace.
Considered one of the greatest Bach interpreters of his generation, Stepan Simonian endeavors to render the great composer’s piano works in all their subtlety. Stepan’s excellent style is the result of his comprehensive training at the Moscow Conservatory under Pavel Nersessian and Oleg Boshniakovich, then in Hamburg under Evgeni Koroliov. These demanding studies enabled him to win several prizes, including the Silver Medal at the 2010 Bach Competition in Leipzig. He has also performed as a soloist with such famous orchestras as Hamburger Symponiker, Mendelssohn Kammerorchester Leipzig, Sinfonia Varsovia (conducted by Arie van Beek) and Bach Kollegium Stuttgart (conducted by Helmuth Rilling). International music critics appreciated his first CD with all of Bach’s Toccatas (Genuin), as well as his second album with the Goldberg Variations recorded with the support of the NDR broadcaster and released in 2019 (Cavi-Music). More recently, Stepan Simonian has chosen a C. Bechstein concert grand piano to record several of Ferruccio Busoni’s piano transcriptions of works by Johann Sebastian Bach. Stepan Simonian has been teaching piano and chamber music at Hamburg’s Hochschule für Musik und Theater since 2009.
"Bechtein was always a great part of my musical life, and I am happy to stay in close touch with this thoroughly worked-out, gracefully designed and passionately produced instruments, which help me to broaden the horizon of my piano sound image every time I meet Bechtein Concert Grand in a concert hall. If I would be asked to give a few terms for Bechstein Piano this would be Elegance, Taste and Grace."
photo © Yvonne Schmedemann
