A weekly contributor to Magnificat Media/Radio
Peter is a Flemish pianist composer and conductor who studied piano and chamber music at the Royal Conservatory of his native city of Ghent. His teachers were Louis Pas and François Glorieux. He graduated with the Diplôme Supérieure d’Exécution for Piano from the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris ‘Alfred Cortot’. His teacher there as the Polish Piano pedagogue Marian Ribicky.
Peter Ritzen is a composer of massive works with many performers reaching 400 +. An example of this magnitude is his transcendental symphony ‘Heavenly Peace’ which world premiered in 2005. As a concert pianist, Mr. Ritzen has played throughout Europe, Asia, and the U.S. He is an acclaimed interpreter of Franz Liszt & Theodor Leschetizky.
He is the founder and artistic director of the International Theodor Leschetizky Summer Academy at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien (University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna) since 1991. In 2000 & 2004 he was invited to be the artistic director and chairman of the Jury of the International Piano Competition ‘Theodor Leschetizky’ in Taipei. In between 2009 and 2014, Mr. Ritzen was invited by the Chinese Ministry of Culture to perform large scale piano concerts all over China. By 2015, he was appointed artistic director of the New Cosmos International Music Festival. The inaugural concert was held at the Haydnsaal of Schloss Esterházy in Eisenstadt, Austria under Ritzen’s direction. Last year in 2016, he was appointed music director of “Das Akademie Orchester” in Vienna. The 65-member ensemble is directly related to the International Summer Academie Theodor Leschetizky in Vienna.
This is Peter Ritzen….
Get to know and love classical music by understanding why it’s so important to our Catholic Faith through the help and guidance of Peter Ritzen. Peter presents this beautiful art with wit, illuminating facts, a touch of humor, and brings the soul ascending to God with his love and mastery of Classical Music. Visit Magnificat Radio for this new feature.