Cora Brückner-Irsen

Cora Irsen comes from a Rhineland-based musical family and began piano lessons at the age of four. She studied under P. Gililov in Cologne, K.-H. Kämmerling in Salzburg and R-D. Arens in Weimar, drawing musical inspiration from L. Berman, F. Rados and A. Schiff. Cora Irsen has won the Weimar International Franz Liszt Competition and the Göttingen International Chopin Competition.

Her concerts have taken her to Belgium, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, Poland, Japan, Malaysia and Australia, and she does an extended tour through Japan every year. She has played many of her concerts as part of a chamber music ensemble, alongside Mirijam Contzen, Ralph Manno, Charles Neidich, Hartmut Rohde, Guido Schiefen, Jörg Brückner, Matthias Moosdorf, Erich Krüger and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, to name but a few.

In autumn 2001, Cora Irsen released her debut CD, featuring solo pieces by Franz Liszt, played on Liszt’s historic grand piano in Weimar. In 2009, she released the CD ‘Görner spricht Goethe, Irsen spielt Liszt’ (‘Görner speaks Goethe, Irsen plays Liszt’). In addition, a CD featuring J. Brahms’ sonatas for cello and piano was also released 2004.

Cora Irsen feels uniquely drawn to Franz Liszt and, as a result, she has been exploring his piano works for more than 20 years. As part of this in-depth involvement, she released two Liszt CDs, in 2011 to 2012, where she does not simply play his works: she also talks about his life. In 2013, she created another CD with adaptations by Franz Liszt (‘Richard Wagner – eine mystische Klangwelt’ [‘Richard Wagner – a mystical world of sounds’]).