Pianist Marián Lapšanský attracted the attention of the public already as a pupil of the Bratislava Conservatory, and later on as a student of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (with Frantiöek Maxiån and Jan Panenka) when he won the Smetana Piano Competition in Hradec Krålové and was awarded for his performance of W. A. Mozart’s pieces in 1971. Later he acquired the Anda-Bührle Prize (1972) at the master classes of Géza Anda in Zürich. He continued his studies as a postgraduate at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the class of Victor Merzhanov. Other trophies which contributed to swift advancement of his concert career include the title of laureate at the International Rostrum of Young Performers UNESCO in the frame of Bratislava Music Festival.
Presently Marián Lapšanský is a regular guest of numerous prestigious world concert stages performing with renowned orchestras. He has collaborated with famous conductors: Våclav Neumann, Jiří Bélohlåvek, Roberto Benzi, Ken Ichiro Kobayashi, Zdenék Koöler, Libor Peöek, Alexander Rahbari, L’udovit Rajter, Emmanuel Villaume, Leoö Svårovskj and others. He has featured at a number of solo recitals as well as chamber concerts at distinguished festivals like Wiener Festwochen, Salzburger Festspiele, Berliner Festtage, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Prague Spring, Ankara International Music Festival, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Bratislava Music Festival and others.
Being not only an excellent soloist, Marián Lapšanský became one of the most sought-after chamber players in the contemporary music world, performing with respectable soloists: Peter Schreier, Magdaléna Hajóssyová, Peter Dvorskj, Dagmar Peckovå, Sergej Kopéåk, Angelika May, Josef Suk, Jiří Bårta, Shizuka Ishikawa, Elena Obraztsova, Raphael Wallfish, and many others. His musicianship is eternized on plentiful radio, TV and studio recordings. In 1995 he and the cellist Jiří Bårta were awarded the Golden Harmony Prize for the CD with Rachmaninoff, Schnittke and Pärt sonatas. He acquired the Classic Award for the recording of the year in 1997 (Zdenék Fibich: Moods, Impressions, and Reminiscences – a collection of 12 CDs) and the prize for the best Czech recording for 1998 (in 1999, Leoš Janáček: Diary of One Who Disappeared with Peter Straka and Dagmar Peckovå). Apart from the mentioned awards for the first-class recordings the European Prize of Gustav Mahler, awarded annually by the European Union of Arts in collaboration with the European Union, was awarded to him in 2002 for creative music activity, unconventional and progressive asset to cultural context and for the support of music art. In the recent years he has been giving concerts in Japan, Spain, Poland, Canada, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, South African Republic, Hungary, Kuwait, Germany, South Korea, Belarus, Italy, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
Marián Lapšanský holds a remarkable position as an organizer of Slovak music life being, among others, an artistic director of the Musica nobilis International Festival and a president of the J. N. Hummel International Piano Competition in Bratislava. Since 2004 he has been the director general of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. He has often been invited as a member of international piano competitions’ juries, e. g. Franz Liszt international piano competition in Budapest, international L. v. Beethoven piano competition in Bonn, A. Scriabin piano competition in Grosset, Prix AmadéO de Piano in Aachen, Premio internazionale di interpretazione pianistica “Giuliano Pecar” in Gorizia, International Chamber Music Competition in Frankfurt, Prague Spring International Piano Competition, etc. His students have collected more than 30 different awards at international performing competitions. He has been teaching at music academies in Bratislava and Banskå Bystrica, and also at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (up to 2012).
