Aristo Sham speelt Brahms’ pianosonates

Aristo Sham

Aristo Sham has been playing the piano since he was three years old; in 2025, at the age of 29, he won the world's largest piano competition: the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. His victory was followed worldwide: livestreams attracted millions of viewers from more than 145 countries. The New York Times describes him as a pianist 'whose playing combines clarity, elegance, and abundant technique'. Although Sham is versatile, the Hong Kong-born pianist plays primarily romantic music during his Amsterdam debut.

Brahms' piano sonatas

'And he has come, a youth at whose cradle fairies and heroes stood guard. His name is Johannes Brahms…' With these words, Robert Schumann, the most important critic of his time, placed a heavy weight on the shoulders of the young Brahms in 1853. After two early successes, his First and Second Piano Sonatas , Brahms presented his Third Sonata a few months after Schumann's Olympic prediction. That year, Brahms made the leap from an unknown nineteen-year-old pianist to a twenty-year-old sensation. With his Third Piano Sonata , a work of symphonic grandeur, Brahms firmly established himself on the musical map in one fell swoop.