A year after his sensational win at Leeds, the Kazakhstani pianist talks to Jessica Duchen about his meteoric rise to fame and how he enjoys the many challenges
Winning the Leeds International Piano Competition, Britain’s leading contest of its kind, is the dream of many a youthful concert pianist. For Alim Beisembayev, the dream came true in September 2021. ‘It was an incredible, absolutely unforgettable moment,’ he remembers. ‘I still sometimes have to pinch myself. It’s hard to believe that now I am part of the Leeds history.’
He shot to victory performing Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in the final with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze, and scooped not only first prize, but also the medici.tv audience prize and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society Prize for contemporary performance. High praise greeted him in the press, the Guardian terming him a ‘worthy winner’ with ‘real musical personality’. And the audiences who have watched him growing and developing over his years of study in the UK capital felt happily vindicated.
Beisembayev arrives to meet me in central London, over tea; but in some ways he would not seem out of place wielding a martini, shaken not stirred. Soft spoken, with impeccable English honed since his arrival in the UK aged 12, he is what some might call a cool customer. He manages to be modest, self-aware and confident at the same time, qualities that a young musician probably needs if recording, aged only 24, the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies while still under the intense post-competition spotlight. Beisembayev’s album of these 12 ferocious piano poems is just out on Warner Classics.
But then, a pianist who can get through the Leeds competition can probably get through anything. ‘In terms of repertoire, it’s a big ask,’ Beisembayev says. ‘For the first round, we had to submit two different 75-minute programmes and they would tell us a day or two before performing them which one we would play. It was the same with the concerto and with the second round, although there was a bit more notice. That was a lot of repertoire. At one point I didn’t realise that I had put down some of the same pieces; they contacted me and said I had to change them.
‘I guess the good thing for me,’ he adds, ‘is that I like a challenge. The thought of how I’m going to cope with certain repertoire with two days’ notice slightly excites me.’
Nerves, he says, are ‘a thing that you’ve got to accept, unless they’re very uncontrollable. Luckily, at the moment I f
