MUSICAL LIFE
Pianist Lambert Orkis’s substantial career includes more than eleven years of international concertizing with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. For 37 years, the celebrated duo of violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and Mr. Orkis has appeared to capacity audiences in the world’s finest performance venues. They regularly concertize at the most prestigious festivals throughout the world, such as the Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals. The duo's many recordings and DVDs for Deutsche Grammophon include sonata cycles by Mozart (Choc de l'année Award), Beethoven (Grammy Award) and Brahms. Most recently, on Sony Classical, Mr. Orkis can be heard with Ms. Mutter and cellist Pablo Ferrández in Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio in g minor, and in 2026, Alpha Classics will release a recording of Ms. Mutter and Mr. Orkis with cellists Maximilian Hornung and Daniel Müller-Schott performing works by André Previn and Sebastian Currier.
For Bridge Records, he has premiered and recorded compositions of numerous composers, including solo works written for him by George Crumb, Richard Wernick, and James Primosch. With NSO principal cellist David Hardy for the Sono Luminus label, he offers two performances of Beethoven's cycle of works for piano and cello performed on both modern and period instruments.
Mr. Orkis premiered in Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center Wernick’s Piano Concerto which was written for him and the National Symphony Orchestra, Mstislav Rostropovich conducting. For the Bridge Records recording of this work, he is paired with Symphony II of Chicago. The European premiere took place with Mr. Orkis and Het Residentie Orkest of The Hague, The Netherlands. For these last two occurences, the composer conducted.
As soloist, he has appeared with conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Slatkin, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Günther Herbig, Manfred Honeck, Christian Măcelaru, John Mauceri, Robert Kapilow, Leon Fleisher, and Kenneth Slowik.
He has made major recital appearances with cellists Lynn Harrell, Anner Bylsma, Daniel Müller-Schott, Amanda Forsyth, Tanja Tetzlaff, Pablo Ferrández, Maximilian Hornung, and Lionel Martin, violinist Julian Rachlin, violist Steven Dann, and he has performed with the Emerson, Vertavo, American, Mendelssohn, Curtis, Manchester, Goldner, and Elias String Quartets, and the Arcadia Winds. Earlier in his career, he performed in recital with tenor Rolf Björling, coloratura soprano Mattiwilda Dobbs, sopranos Eleanor Steber, Arleen Augér, and Lucy Shelton, and mezzo-sopranos Blanche Thebom and Edith Evans.
He has twice been engaged as distinguished performing artist and teacher for Australia’s Musica Viva Festival. Three times he has performed for and served as juror of the Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition and Festival, most recently as chairman of the jury. The Carnegie Hall International American Music Competition for Pianists and the Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards Competition engaged him as adjudicator, and as Honored Artist for Taiwan’s New Aspect International Music Festival, he performed and presented master classes in Taipei. This past summer, with cellist David Hardy and using period instruments, he appeared at the 2025 Conference-Festival Piano | Forte presented by the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
As a founding member of both the Kennedy Center Chamber Players and the Smithsonian Institution's Castle Trio (period instruments), he has performed and recorded numerous albums. For over 40 years he has held the position of principal keyboard of the National Symphony Orchestra, and has taught at Temple University in Philadelphia, currently as professor of piano, for over half a century. The Federal Republic of Germany has bestowed upon Mr. Orkis the Cross of the Order of Merit in acknowledgment of his accomplishments.
(Last updated February 16, 2026)
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