Biography

Caspar Frantz, a native of Kiel, studied with Prof. Matthias Kirschnereit at the Rostock University of Music and completed his post-graduate chamber music studies with Professor Eberhard Feltz at the Hanns Eisler University, Berlin. He further received great support due to the intense artistic collaboration with Renate Kretschmar-Fischer, Ferenc Rados, Christoph Eschenbach, Andras Schiff, Elisabeth Leonskaja as well as György and Marta Kurtag.

Since his debut at the Rheingau Music Festival, Frantz has performed in Germany and abroad, in major Festivals such as Ravinia, Gstaad, Schleswig-Holstein, Septembre Musical Montreux, Festival de Pollenca, Beethoven Festival Bonn, IMS Prussia Cove and Festival Schwetzingen. He toured South Africa with the National Youth Orchestra of Germany and has also appeared with orchestras such as the Polish Chamber Philharmonic, the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, the Iasi Moldova Philharmonic and the prestigious Young Soloist Ensemble Kaleidoskop from Berlin. In 2010, Frantz performed the world premiere of the c-minor Piano Concerto by Friedrich von Flotow, with the MDR Orchestra Leipzig, conducted by Michael Sanderling.

Frantz is also an ardent chamber musician. Together with his duo partner cellist Julian Arp, he has won a large number of prestigious awards such as the first prize at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Competition in 2006, the award for best chamber music ensemble at the Freunde junger Musiker, the first prize at the German Music Competition 2006, which included the special prize of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, as well as the first prize at the International Competition for chamber music Premio Vittorio Gui in Florence, 2006. Chloe Hanslip, Rainer Kussmaul, Sabine Meyer, Bryn Terfel and the Vogler String Quartet are among his chamber music partners. Since 2006, Frantz has played all Beethoven piano sonatas in a series of concerts at Castle Melschede, Westfalia. 

Franz, together with Julian Arp and publisher Johannes CS Frank, is Artistic Director of the ZEITKUNST Festival for contemporary Literature and Chamber Music, Berlin. Moreover, he has made two recordings highly acclaimed by the German and international press: first, a recording of Mendelssohn's works for cello and piano together with Julian Arp for the label GENUIN, Leipzig, as well as Piano Concertos by Joseph Haydn for the Label ARS (with Ensemble Kaleidoskop).

His future plans for 2012 include the recording of the Six French Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach as well as the two Piano Concertos by Friedrich von Flotow (with Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen) and also a series of chamber music concerts in the Saronic Region of Greece which have been organised for the first time during summer 2011 with the aim to bring together distinguished young musicians to perform masterpieces of the chamber music repertory.