Julius Asal, Klavier

Exceptional talent? You'd be forgiven for thinking that this attribute has degenerated into a mere marketing phrase, if it weren't for the fact that there are always those outstanding young performers who are somehow different and who are remembered for that very reason. Julius Asal belongs to this category. He has not arrived at the forefront of pianists of his generation with any fanfare or catapult. Rather, he arrived there quietly and in his own way. He was fortunate in his early youth to have had the time to try things out. My parents just let me do it. Even at my first competition I couldn't read music. Perhaps that is why his approach to music is so intuitive and so much driven by feeling. Even his teacher, Menahem Pressler, marvelled at the Asal phenomenon: 'It's a mystery to me how he found his unique sound. The instrument seemed to tell him a secret.