Martin Sturfält

Swedish pianist Martin Sturfält enjoys an international career as a concerto soloist, recitalist, chamber musician and recording artist. He performs a large repertoire ranging from the baroque through to the present day, but increasingly it is his passion for the music of his native country that is earning him recognition internationally as well as in Sweden. His CD of the Adolf Wiklund Piano Concertos for the Hyperion label was named the second best release of the year in Sweden and also won an Outstanding Award in International Record Review, and he has previously recorded a critically acclaimed disc of Stenhammar's solo music for the same label. 

Born near Katrineholm in Sweden in 1979, Martin started to play the piano at the age of four. He studied at the Stockholm Royal College of Music and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. His principal teachers were Esther Bodin-Karpe and Stefan Bojsten in Stockholm, and Paul Roberts and Ronan O’Hora in London. 

Martin began giving regular concerts at the age of 11, and has since performed extensively throughout Europe, as well as in Asia. Highlights have included solo and chamber music recitals at all major venues in Stockholm and the rest of Sweden as well as at London’s Purcell Room, Barbican Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Martin is regularly invited to perform as a soloist with orchestras and has appeared with, amongst others, the Hallé Orchestra and all Swedish orchestras such as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the Swedish Radio Symphony, collaborating with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Sir Mark Elder, Thomas Dausgaard, Andrew Manze, Peter Oundijan, Vassily Sinaisky and Alexander Vedernikov. His performances have been broadcast throughout Europe and the USA. 

Martin won first prizes in both the 1999 Swedish and the 2002 UK Yamaha competitions as well as the 2002 Malmö Nordic ‘Blüthner’ Piano Competition, the 2004 John Ogdon Prize, and the 2005 Terence Judd Award. After 10 years in London, he now lives in the Swedish countryside, where his non-musical spare time activities include bee-keeping and gardening.