On 3 January 2019, only a few weeks after winning the 10th Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, Can Çakmur returned to the ACT CITY Concert Hall in Hamamatsu in order to record his début disc. Can’s chosen programme reflects his wide-ranging musical interests – from Haydn’s late F minor set of variations and Schubert’s early Sonata in E flat to Sacrifice from 2017, composed by Fuyuhiko Sasaki for the competition. Opening with Liszt’s transcription of the Beethoven song Adelaide, the amply filled disc also includes Bartók’s challenging Out of Doors and Black Earth by Can’s compatriot, the Turkish pianist and composer Fazıl Say.

Born in 1997, Can Çakmur (pronounced Djahn Tchakmur) studied in his native Ankara as well as in Paris, and is currently a student at the University of Music Franz Liszt in Weimar. He has performed widely in Turkey and has a particular interest in spreading classical music to a wider audience. But recent successes, which include a first prize at the 2017 Scottish International Piano Competition, are leading to an increasingly international career with appearances at prestigious venues such as the Salle Cortot in Paris and Usher Hall in Edinburgh, as well as an extensive tour of Japan in the spring of 2019. For the present disc, Can Çakmur has chosen to perform on the same instrument that he chose to play throughout the Hamamatsu competition, a Shigeru Kawai SK-EX full concert grand.