Bruce Liu

“All these cultures surrounding me have a great impact on me. Chinese would be the traditional side. I feel like the history of Chinese culture, Confucianism and Taoism, is in my blood. I grew up in Canada, so I’m also heavily influenced by the openness and dynamism of North America. I have ties with Europe through my work, and from European culture, I like to take historical refinement,” says Bruce Liu, the 29-year-old Paris-born Canadian-Chinese pianist who burst onto the international music scene following his victory at the 18th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2021. A year later, he signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon, which has so far resulted in three albums: Lunaris, released in summer 2026, The Seasons (2024), and the double album Waves, which won the Opus Klassik Award for studio recording debut of the year in 2024.

In May 2026, the British magazine Pianist included him among the “10 legendary pianists with the most beautiful cantabile tone”. This season, Bruce Liu will perform with, among others, the New York Philharmonic under Ryan Bancroft and the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Antonio Pappano, as well as at London’s Wigmore Hall. He has already made his debut with the Boston, Chicago and Vienna Symphony Orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, and at prestigious venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Berlin Philharmonie. In Prague, he will perform a programme largely mirroring his recital at New York’s Carnegie Hall in February this year, which earned him enthusiastic reviews. “When it came to downright sheer virtuosity, Mr. Liu was…well, astounding is a terrible adjective. Yet when it came to fingers and hands, the young man seemed to be indefatigable miraculous. Mr. Liu made the impossible sound…well, not insouciant. But with a crystalline perfection I have heard rarely,” wrote Harry Rolnick on concertonet.com.

The artistic direction and programme of the Prague Spring remain entirely within the remit of the festival’s management. The programme for the 2027 Prague Spring will be released on 3 November.

“I am very pleased that works by Czech and Slovak composers, commissioned by the Prague Spring, will be performed as part of such a significant event as the Frankfurt Book Fair. I see the Prague Spring as an ambassador not only of traditional but also of contemporary Czech music, consistently supporting domestic composers through its commissions and giving them a valuable opportunity to engage with top international creative output. For many of them, this represents another valuable professional experience and an opportunity to gain wider international recognition. At the same time, I am already looking forward to May 2027, when Ensemble Modern’s three-year residency at Prague Offspring will culminate as part of the 82^nd Prague Spring Festival, with another exciting series of concerts featuring five world premieres and three Czech premieres,” says Robert Hanč, Director of the Prague Spring Festival.

The concert in Frankfurt am Main will be conducted by Ustina Dubitsky, who works with the Bavarian State Opera and the orchestra Les Siècles, among others. The concert is part of the programme of the Year of Czech Culture in German-speaking Countries, which runs from October 2025 to December 2026 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

All of us at the Prague Spring Festival are delighted that this brilliant, musically speaking performance of Smetana’s Libuše has been captured on an audio recording, and that along with this recording, a bit of the thrilling atmosphere of the Prague Spring Festival concerts will reach you.

The set contains three CDs which you can already order at a reduced pre-order price here. From 18 September, it will also be available on streaming platforms via this link.

The performance of Libuše at the 2024 Prague Spring Festival was part of the Smetana200 project.

Libuše at the 2024 Prague Spring Festival © Ivan Malý

In Schubert’s works, the traveller is a lonely, wandering outsider trapped within his own inner world. However, the native Viennese’s fascination with the theme of travel may have been driven by a completely different motivation than mere lack of recognition, failing health and Prince Metternich’s repressive regime. For he was, in fact, a passionate traveller!

He left us a detailed travelogue of one of his holiday journeys in 1825 through the Austrian Salzkammergut region in his correspondence with his parents. In one of the letters, he writes: ‘I spent six weeks in Gmunden, whose surroundings are truly divine, and just like its inhabitants – particularly the lovely Traweger – it moved me deeply and did me a world of good.’

Together with his friend, the singer Johann Michael Vogel, they undertook excursions in the surrounding area, went on boat trips and played music practically every day at the home of their host, Ferdinand Traweger. Schubert also worked here on his Great Symphony in C major, which was admired by a number of Czech composers, including Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák and the young Leoš Janáček. It was not performed until eleven years after Schubert’s death, when Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy conducted it with his Gewandhausorchester in Leipzig in 1839.

If you’re an artistic soul, the Salzkammergut is highly recommended. Arnold Schönberg composed his first piece using the dodecaphonic technique here by Lake Traunsee, whilst the area around Lake Attersee was a favourite of Gustav Mahler and Gustav Klimt. So, if you’re looking to compose a symphony or paint a magnificent painting, the Salzkammergut is the perfect destination!

In the house, built in the Louis XV style, Chopin’s room had special soundproof shutters and heavily padded doors so that the maestro could compose undisturbed during the day, whilst George usually slept after a sleepless night. Although he appeared at first glance to be a gentle man, he often succumbed to fits of rage and despair, during which he would throw himself on the floor, scream, tear up his manuscripts, pound the keys and claim that he had no talent and would never compose anything worthwhile.

You can still visit George Sand’s house in Nohant today, where the Polish composer spent some of the happiest years of his life. And if you’re lucky, you’ll be served fresh rolls ‘à la George Sand’.