The young Turkish pianist Can Çakmur has achieved a rare success in the history of the ICMA: after winning the Young Artist of the Year Award in 2021 and the Solo Instrument Award in 2020, Çakmur has now won the ICMA Award for the third time in five years with his third recording in the Schubert+ series. Hale Tetik from the ICMA Jury member Andante made the following interview with the young pianist.
You were awarded the Solo Instrument Award for 2025 by ICMA, the International Classical Music Awards. Could you tell us what this award means to you?
ICMA is one of the leading organizations in the musical world. For all the winners, labels, producers and artists, it is a stamp of quality. While producing, we work constantly under feelings of uncertainty. There is no real formula to make a good, convincing recording. It is different each time and with every piece we ask ourselves: Does this tempo feel good? Is the sound appropriate for the effect we want to achieve? How should we ornament the score and what to do with editorial discrepancies between sources? What is our relationship with tradition: do we conform or do we break off?
This award gives me confidence that our answers have found resonance within the musical community and encourages us to follow through in the same way.
This is not the first award you have received from ICMA. In 2020, you won the Solo Instrument Award with your first CD released by BIS, and in 2021, you were awarded the Young Artist of the Year. What does it feel like to receive an award from ICMA for the third time in five years?
I am astonished. One can’t and shouldn’t take appreciation for granted. Especially considering we change as artists throughout our careers and to see that change being perceived positively is very valuable.
Let’s talk about your award-winning recording. What kind of a preparation process did you go through for your Schubert + Krenek album? What welcomes the listeners in this recording?
This album was possibly the most difficult recording I have done up to this day. The day after I finished the takes for Schubert Sonata, I couldn’t play the piano anymore. It is as if my brain and my hands gave up and refused to move. Especially on a modern piano, the last movement of the Sonata is almost unplayable; at least at a tempo which makes sense musically. I think despite the obvious dichotomy of Krenek vs Schubert, which many critics have pointed out positively and negatively, the real interest point of the album lies in the blurring of the distinction between light music and serious music. Krenek himself expressed this sentiment with his preference of lighter French music over the philosophically laden German music. The similar conflict happens in Schubert as well: his music is grounded in a Bohemian life reality. With this vision, I am trying to move the focus away from the otherworldly-meditative aspects of Schubert’s music. In a broader sense, what I hope to show is that a deep understanding of life and philosophy does not necessarily manifest itself through complexity and abstraction.
Schubert + Krenek is actually part of a very detailed project of yours. Could you share this project with our readers as a whole?
Schubert+ is essentially a survey of Schubert’s complete piano music. Because we don’t have a real consensus as to what constitutes complete Schubert, I have limited myself to the works that Schubert marked as complete. Even though there are quite a few teenage works included, most of it is of high quality to warrant recording on their artistic merits.
The other aspect is the involvement of different composers who relate to Schubert. This serves two purposes: on one hand it enables each recording to be listened as a self-contained recital and it stops the recording process from becoming too one sided for me. I put special emphasis on the booklet texts, with each of them dealing with a different facet of Schubert’s era and Schubert’s creation inspired by the merits of the accompanying works. The idea has been to create a series which has some sort of an academic value as well as the inherent artistic value.
Can Cakmur at the 2021 Award Ceremony in Vaduz, presenting his trophies from 2020 & 2021
One of the aims of the ICMA awards is to support artists and ensure their visibility. As an artist who has received the award more than once, have you been able to see this purpose of ICMA effectively in your life?
Yes indeed. I have seen an increase in publications and radio stations that take an interest in my recordings and have gotten a few concert proposals from places which I had no prior connection with. I must add, unfortunately, that the 2020 award ceremony was cancelled and 2021 was held just between lockdowns with significant travel restrictions. I think that masked the visibility of the awards greatly. This time, the effect seems to be much bigger already and I am curious to see how things will shape out.
It attracted my attention that you also have a critical view of awards and competitions. What kind of attitude should an artist have towards awards and competitions?
Yes indeed, at times I have criticized awards and competitions, despite being a prizewinner myself. I know this seems to be a hypocritical attitude, but I will try to explain the idea behind my criticism. I think awarding arts can never be an objective process. In the end the best we can hope for is that it is a fair and just average of inherently subjective views will be achieved. I don’t think the opinion on arts cannot be subjective, beyond certain traits obliged by tradition and nature that we must consider. And this, I believe, has been achieved mostly, at least in the competition circuit. What would be a fallacy is to believe that a first prize is the result of an imitable, proven merit and, conversely, elimination, a symptom of failure. At this point, I’d like to recall Rubinstein’s righteous anger at being called the best pianist in the world.
I know of certain schools of thought trying to crack the code of how to win piano competitions. I think this misses the point entirely: music is not gymnastics where certain moves will score higher than others and certain mistakes will deduce points. If a prize is given in recognition, wonderful but it should never replace the reason behind making music. The prize should always remain an unexpected result of a certain artistic process, which retains its integrity and should always stay instrumental in pursuit of an artistic goal.
In the ICMA Gala Concert 2025, you will perform the last movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3. We know that you see Beethoven not only as a musician but also as a thinker. May we ask for your views on the work you will perform and Beethoven?
Beethoven took me longer to grasp than Schubert or Mozart, who came more intuitively. The conservatoire education in Germany puts great emphasis on Beethoven as an architect and there is definitely an expectation to hear him played in that particular, meticulous way. It is quite curious to see that this is the exact opposite of the Beethoven image of his time. What I found very difficult to grasp was his very unique passion. I find it very visceral, very theatrical as opposed to the stylized approach of Mozart. I don’t think Schubert, like Mozart, was able to write a single ugly note. Beethoven, on the other hand, hammers his music willfully into shape, in an interplay of sublime and grotesque. The third concerto is no different. The third movement has a manic, boisterous, unconfined quality which I am hoping to accentuate.
Your career and stance set an example for young pianists who follow in your footsteps. How do you observe the process of raising and supporting young talents in our country?
I am proud of each of them (I follow them very closely) and if I am having any positive influence on their development, that makes me even happier. What must now happen is that they should, in due time, shake of the mantel of “young talent” and enter the international circuit. They should not be afraid of the proverbial glass ceiling and especially not let themselves be diverted by the complacency that is the result of significant successes as a teenager. We are a country where the media and the public takes comparatively more interest in the successes of young musicians. This attention is a blessing and a curse and has to be managed well. Turkey still remains, unfortunately, an insular market. The early domestic success, despite the incredible quality of pre-college students, is not an indication of international integration. This is something that our generation must take upon themselves to change.
Can Cakmur
In one of your interviews, you evaluated Turkey as a music country and you said that one should consider receiving awards a normal process. What would you like to say on the subject?
It has to do with managing our expectations. I believe I gave the example of Spanish football clubs in that interview. When Real Madrid or Barcelona get to the quarter finals of the Champions League, the whole country doesn’t unite in celebrating their success. This comes from an unshakeable belief that their teams belong to the world’s elite. I am quite certain that Spanish people are very proud to have two of the biggest clubs in the world in their country. I would wish for this for our football clubs too but that is currently irrelevant.
Now, of course my analogy is not that we are opponents in the music market. We must support each other in this very, very lonely industry. However, we have to acquire the unshakable belief that our musicians should belong to the world’s elite, that our institutions should not be lacking in quality behind the best around the globe. We should not celebrate these successes as David vs. Goliath stories. The longer we keep doing that, the longer mediocrity will be acceptable and will have valid excuses. We must measure ourselves up to the world standards, hold ourselves truthfully and honestly accountable; and then we must commit to upholding those standards, day in and day out instead of treating every success as an insular and unlikely event.
