Kai Adomeit

Pianist Kai Adomeit has a reputation as a connoisseur's find on the German keyboard scene. He has been active as a solo player, concerto soloist, duo pianist, and chamber musician. Adomeit was born in 1968 in Mannheim, Germany. He grew up in a highly musical family; his father, Hans Adomeit, was solo cellist at the Nationaltheater Mannheim and was also a university professor. Kai took up the piano at eight and made rapid progress; in 1977, he received the Mozart Prize from the city of Mannheim. His principal teachers were Paul Dan, Gerhard Oppitz, Michael Ponti, Conrad Hansen, and György Cziffra. In the early '90s, he recorded a complete cycle of Rachmaninov's four piano concertos for the Bayer label; these recordings won a Choc du monde de la musique award from France's Diapason magazine and put Adomeit on the international map. He also made recordings of works by Dvořák, Liszt, and Schumann for German labels. For much of the '90s, Adomeit was principally active as a chamber musician. He often performed with violinist Wanda Wilkomirska, with the London Piano Group, and with his father. In the new century, he has appeared as a duo pianist with Frank Strobel and returned to solo concertizing, appearing with such ensembles as the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Ljubljana Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra. He has also served as the permanent orchestral pianist of the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and has performed as a film musician in both Germany and the U.S. In live concerts, Adomeit has often performed the original music to Fritz Lang's silent film Nibelungen, composed by Gottfried Huppertz. He has plans to record the works of the contemporary composer Hermann Schäfer. Adomeit returned to the recording studio in 2023, joining pianist Joseph Moog on the Onyx label for a performance of the two-piano version of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances, Op. 45.
© James Manheim /TiVo