For Austrian pianist Lukas Sternath, it’s all about the connections. Competition wins? Check. Honors for a rising star? Check. Brilliant performances throughout Europe? Absolutely, with many more to come. Yet when Sternath talks about his career, it’s mostly in terms of the people he’s met and the relationships he’s forged.
The Bamberg Symphony Orchestra offers a prime example. Sternath debuted with the orchestra in early 2024 with Jakub Hrůša on the podium, and will be touring with them in Germany in November, playing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 1. “They’re wonderful!” he says. “From the very first moment, I felt this trust and warmth from them. We connected really well. Now when I see them it’s like meeting a close friend whom you hug instead of shaking hands. It feels like we’re hugging and playing at the same time.”
This is partly youthful enthusiasm. At the tender age of 24, Sternath is still thrilled by all the possibilities that his profession holds. Yet he’s also remarkably accomplished, a winner of no less than eight prizes at the prestigious ARD International Music Competition (Sir Simon Rattle calls it the “Olympic games of music”). He was an ECHO Rising Star last season, and is currently a BBC New Generation Artist through the 2026–27 season. He is also an “Artist in Focus” at the Musikverein this season.
It’s an exceptional resume, especially for someone who has described himself on a number of occasions as an “accidental” artist. “For me, it’s still kind of a riddle how I got to this wonderful place,” he says.
Unlike many talented young musicians, Sternath did not come from a musical family, unless you count his mother’s avid interest in opera. He started playing piano at the age of five, though strictly as a hobby, with no thought of a career in music. And he had little interest in the classical repertoire. “I was playing easy classical pieces for children, which I really didn’t like, it was boring,” he recalls. “My teacher was also a jazz musician, so when I asked him if I could try something else, he got me started on improvisation. I really liked that approach, the free playing, not being restricted to what’s written on the page.”
Sternath learned to love classical music during four years singing with the Vienna Boys’ Choir, which happened entirely on a whim. He happened to see a clip online from the 2004 film Les Choristes (The Choir), a sentimental story about a French boys’ choir, that piqued his interest. “It fascinated me, I wanted to do the same,” he says. He passed the entrance exam and audition for the Vienna choir, and after training and performing with them, returned to the piano with renewed interest.
“Around the age of 12 or 13, I started to seriously practice and found that it could actually be fulfilling,” he says. “I felt at home sitting at the piano and practicing for hours every day.”
Sternath took up formal studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, then at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, where he earned a master’s degree earlier this year. One of his teachers there was the superstar pianist Igor Levit, who has remained involved in his life and career.
“He’s the best instructor I could ever wish for – honest, loving and supportive, but at the same time expecting a lot,” Sternath says. “Our student-teacher relationship has evolved over the years into something else, now we’re close friends and colleagues. I’m still playing for him and taking advice from him, and not necessarily only about music. I think this kind of relationship is what life is really about.”
Sternath started making his way through the competition circuit in 2021, placing second or third at contests in Bolzano, Dortmund and Bremen that year, then winning the ARD competition in Munich in 2022 along with seven special prizes. It was a life-changing experience. “I met many people at ARD, it opened a lot of new doors for me,” he says. “And that was my last competition. I felt I didn’t need any more to achieve what I really wanted to do, which is to go out in the world and play concerts. I’m a free bird now.”
Sternath has been lauded for the sensitivity and precision of his playing, and careful listeners have noticed traces of his vocal training. “That’s a great compliment and I hope it’s true, because I try to bring that to my performances,” he says. As for the jazz influence, it’s stronger than ever. “I love jazz musicians like Keith Jarrett, who I am listening to a lot these days,” he says. “It puts me in a zone of a really sophisticated way of improvising, where you follow the markings and have a bigger plan, but you still never know what’s going to happen in the moment. These two worlds are not a contradiction for me.”
His bigger plan extends well beyond the keyboard. “I’m trying to communicate in the most honest and direct way possible, not just with the audience, but everything – the work, the instrument, the hall, the atmosphere, even myself,” he says. “When all these components come together, that’s what makes the full picture so beautiful for me.”
Full pictures will be a challenge this season, with a schedule that includes recitals, chamber music and soloist debuts with several new orchestras, playing pieces ranging from core piano repertoire (Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt) to daunting 20th-century sonatas and concertos (Prokofiev, Rachmaninov). If the programming seems scattershot, that’s because it is. At this point in his career, Sternath has no master plan for building his repertoire.
“The most important thing for me is that I love the work,” he says. “I need to feel connected to a piece, otherwise I can’t play it. I mean, what’s the point? If that connection is there, then the rest will more or less come by itself.”
Sternath will have a unique opportunity to forge new connections in his residency at the Musikverein, where he will be curating a three-concert series featuring him in recital, playing in a chamber trio with violinist Veronika Eberle and cellist Julia Hagen, and accompanying singer Sophie Rennert in a lieder program of Schumann, Brahms and Mahler. “I’m very happy, it’s a great opportunity for me,” he says. “Especially playing in a place with so much tradition and history, and such a familiar atmosphere. I went to so many concerts there as a student, it’s like my living room.”
And to say that he’s looking forward to reuniting with the Bamberg orchestra is an understatement. He’s even excited about rehearsing with them. “The rehearsal atmosphere is so friendly and respectful, and we’re all going in the same direction,” he says. “When you play chamber music with two or three other people, the trust is intimate and you can be more spontaneous. With this orchestra, you can have that same connection and flexibility, which is amazing. It’s such a special feeling.”
As for the Beethoven concerto, Sternath relates mostly to the emotions it inspires. “It’s a joy, one of those pieces that after the concert, you leave feeling really uplifted,” he says. “It has a lot of energy and drive, and also this beautiful lyricism. I think it’s just a big ‘yes’ to life.”
There are several cadenzas in the piece, and pianists like Wilhelm Kempff and Glenn Gould were not shy about creating their own. “I’ve learned all the options,” Sternath says. “But I feel like it’s Beethoven’s work, and I should play his cadenzas. Maybe one day I’ll play some of the others, even my own. But right now I don’t have the urge for it, because it’s such a pleasure to play what Beethoven wrote.”
At this point, the only thing missing from Sternath’s career is a recording contract. He is in discussions with a label, but won’t reveal more than that. “Stay tuned,” he says.
What else does the future hold? “I’m looking forward to everything life has to offer, and trying to be open to things as they come,” he says. “Life is really a big practice, I think. Every day we practice something. We can practice being disrespectful, or we can practice the other side. It’s really up to us. This is what being a pianist has taught me: We can decide every day what we want to practice, and how to approach life. We have more in our hands than we realize.”