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The pianist Martin Kasik beyond the reach of ordinary mortals.

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You have won a large number of prizes from competitions or from various foundations. Which of them do you value most? Do some of the competitions stick in your memory more than others?

Of course every competition is a very much an adrenalin affair and so you don't forget them. Probably the one I remember best is the Prague Spring 1998, because competing on hot domestic ground is always the toughest.

If I'm not mistaken, you were 22 at the time. In which phase of your music studies were you back then?

I was in the first year of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague with Prof. Ivan Klansky. I'm glad that I managed such a good take-off, especially when in the first half of the year I was going through a crisis--the transition from the conservatory method of teaching to the academy method probably gives every student problems.

You have taken many music courses in the Czech Republic and abroad led by various interesting people like Lazar Berman, Eugen Indjic, Christian Zacharias, Paul Badura--Skoda, Claude Helffer and others. Do you have any favourite among them, someone who gave you something more?

For me the most beneficial was the summer spent in Marlboro (Vermont), where they hold meetings with chamber music. Playing with people from the Guarneri Quartet or the Beaux Arts Trio was a vast stimulus for me and a long-term inspiration.

Your name is usually followed immediately by the title, "winner of the Young Concert Artists Competition N.Y.1999". Could you say something about the course of the competition and how your success there has influenced your career?

Young Concert Artists is an organisation based in New York, which has been supporting young musicians for 45 years. It is actually a music agency that chooses musicians from all branches of classical music (including chamber ensembles, composers and singers) on the basis of a competition that it organises every year. Especially...

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