About this Artist
Karin Lechner was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She spent most of her youth in Caracas, Venezuela, where she began her musical studies with her mother, Lyl Tiempo. She made her first public appearance at the age of 5 and her debut with orchestra when she was 11. She moved to Europe and continued her piano studies with Maria Curcio and Pierre Sancan and received musical advice from Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire, Daniel Barenboim, Nikita Magaloff, and Rafael Orozco. At the age of 13, Karin Lechner performed in Washington, and during the same season she appeared at the opening concert of the Holland Festival in the Concertgebouw with the Amsterdam Philharmonic.
Since then she has had an active international career playing in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.S., as well as frequent appearances in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Mexico, and Japan. Lechner has performed in major concert halls all over the world, including the Kennedy Center in Washington, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Philharmonie in Berlin, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and she participates in important international festivals such as Menton, Toulouse, Montpellier, Colorado, Verbier, Lugano, Pietrasanta, and Schleswig-Holstein.
In chamber-music performances, Karin Lechner has collaborated with distinguished artists such as Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Janós Starker, Barbara Hendricks, and Viktoria Mullova, and she regularly performs two-piano music with her brother, Sergio Tiempo, with whom she forms a permanent duo and has recorded several CDs. She is also a member of the Trio Carlo Van Neste with the violinist Maya Levy and the cellist Alexandre Debrus.
Karin made her first recording at the age of 13 for EMI, of works by Bach, Schumann, and Chopin. When she was 15, she recorded, for CBS, Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, K. 467, and later a recital including works by Beethoven, Schumann, and Ravel. She recorded Mozart Piano Concertos K. 413, 414, and 415 in a CD with the Franciscan Quartet and two more CDs with the Berliner Symphoniker, playing Brahms Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2.
Karin Lechner made her debut as a conductor at St. John’s Smith Square (now Sinfonia Smith Square) in London, with her daughter Natasha Binder as the 9-year-old soloist. In 2013, she was invited to Caracas to conduct Debussy, Ravel, and Liszt, with her daughter and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra.