About
“I want people to experience a fully engrossing, totally absorbing performance, where they are not aware of me, but only of the music... a performance so convincing that the audience perceives only the music—alive, healthy, vibrant, talking, speaking and singing. This is the sign of a great artist, like Van Cliburn, or Radu Lupu. This is what I’m aiming for.”
Callum McLachlan was born in Manchester into a family of musicians. His father became his first piano teacher when he was 7 and has been a huge musical influence in his life. But it’s seeing the movie Amadeus at age 9 that he credits with jumpstarting a deeper love of music; seeing Mozart as a person—a genius who also found joy in childish jokes—was something that brought awe and connection to a young Callum. The next year, he began attending the United Kingdom’s leading music school, Chetham’s School of Music with Dina Parakhina, at which point he says he knew that being a concert pianist would be his life: “It felt essentially set in stone. There was no way I wouldn’t play concerts for a living, and no way I would not have a happy successful life doing it.” He earned his bachelor's at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg with Claudius Tanski. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Salzburg with Jacques Rouvier, as well as at the Hochschüle für Musik und Tanz Köln with Claudio Martinez Mehner.
Callum has concertized around the world, including Mallorca Piano Festival, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Wasserburg International Festival, Switzerland Nürnberg Staatsphilharmonie, London’s Bechstein Hall, Verdi Hall in Milan, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Wiener Konzerthaus, Leeds Great Hall, and Bridgewater Hall; he recently performed the Swiss premiere of Eric Tanguy’s Piano Quartet for Classeek in Aubonne. His first-prize finishes at international competitions include the Welsh, Scottish, and RNCM. He also had strong finishes in the Leeds and Santander Competitions.
An avid reader, he often comes across written work that immediately reminds him of a piece of music, “whether it be the emotional content, the rhetorical structure, or the ways the phrases interact with each other.” He’s recently enjoyed weaving poetry into his recitals, reading complementary work prior to playing. Harkening back to his early inspiration from Hollywood, Callum names Marlon Brando as a strong influence, revering his complete deep artistic honesty and profound communicative abilities.