Pianist Giorgio Koukl has a wide repertory of Czech and non-Czech music but is best known for his recordings of Martinů's keyboard music. He has also recorded many works by Alexander Tcherepnin and Tibor Harsányi. Koukl was born in Prague, then in Czechoslovakia, in 1953. His family was musical, and he was enrolled in classes at the Prague Conservatory. During the difficult year of 1968, Koukl managed to leave Czechoslovakia for Switzerland, where he studied at the Zurich Conservatory. He also attended the Milan Conservatory in Northern Italy, and for much of his life, he has lived in the Italian-speaking Swiss city of Lugano. He studied or attended master classes with Nikita Magaloff, Jacques Février, Stanislas Neuhaus, and Rudolf Firkušný. The latter, an associate of Martinů, introduced the young pianist to his music, and Koukl would focus on Martinů for the first part of his career. He began a cycle of Martinů's music on the Naxos label in the late '90s; Naxos continued to reissue these recordings in the 2000s decade. Koukl won the Tolosa Competition in Spain, the Viotti International Competition in Italy, and the Aliènor Competition in Washington, D.C., and he was heard on radio broadcasts in several countries. Koukl has appeared with various orchestras in leading European venues, but it was perhaps his recording career that propelled him to greater popularity. That career has two unusual features. One is his broad repertory, which includes not only Martinů but also lesser-known music by Czech composers, including Josef Mysliveček, along with works by Dvorák, Smetana, and Vanhal, among others. The other is Koukl's own work as a composer, which includes works such as the ballet Pandoras and a Te Deum for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. Some of his works are for harpsichord, and some of these were collected on the successful 2002 album Drops of Light on the Gasparo Records label. Koukl devoted a series of recordings to Tcherepnin's piano music on the Grand Piano label in the 2010s, and he later devoted several albums to Harsányi and, in 2017, recorded the complete piano works of Vitezslava Kaprálova for Grand Piano. By the time Koukl, with Virginia Rossetti, released two albums of piano music by Vittorio Rieti in 2023 and 2024, his recording catalog comprised more than 40 albums. ~ James Manheim, Rovi