Pianist Kirill Gerstein’s curiosity and versatility has led him to a powerful engagement with a wide range of repertoire and styles. From Bach to Adès, his playing is distinguished by its energetic and expressive musical personality. With a unique approach that combines clarity of expression, discerning intelligence, virtuosity and an early fascination with jazz, Kirill Gerstein has rapidly become a name to watch.

An American citizen since 2003, Gerstein divides his time between the US and Europe, and in recent seasons has made his debuts with the Vienna Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestras. In Europe this season, he is featured in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s Tchaikovsky Festival curated by Semyon Bychkov, as well as appearing with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France and WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln; in the US, he will perform piano concertos by Busoni with the Boston Symphony, Schoenberg with the Cleveland Orchestra and Tchaikovsky with the New York Philharmonic.

Equally at home in chamber music, this season sees Gerstein give three concerts as part of the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival with fellow chamber musicians including Sir András Schiff; trios with Kolja Blacher and Clemens Hagen in Vienna; a two piano recital with Thomas Adès in Paris; the Brahms Piano Quintet in New York with the Hagen Quartet; as well as curate two concerts featuring music by Mozart, Busoni and Rihm as part of Mozarteum Salzburg’s Dialogues Festival.

Gerstein’s fifth recording - Liszt’s Transcendental Études – just released by myrios classics - follows acclaimed performances in New York and London. Acknowledged as one of the most demanding works of the piano repertoire, the Financial Times recently commented that “Gerstein plays them without any sense of being stretched, finds time to create poetry and drama and is sparing with his big guns”. His recitals this season include performances of the Études across North America as well as in Belgium, Germany, Austria and the UK.

Last year’s release featured the world première recording of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto in the author’s own final 1879 version newly published as urtext by the Tchaikovsky Museum in Klin. The recording won an ECHO Klassik Award and was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award. Gerstein has subsequently championed this previously unheard version performing it at the BBC Proms, Chicago’s Grant Park Music Festival for the new edition’s US première, Iceland, Russia and across Europe. In the coming season, he will additionally introduce the work to the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Atlanta Symphony, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic.

Earlier recordings for myrios classics include Imaginary Pictures, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition coupled with Schumann’s Carnaval, named by The New York Times as one of the best recordings of 2014; two discs with Tabea Zimmerman of sonatas for viola and piano by Brahms, Schubert, Franck, Clarke and Vieuxtemps, of which the Second Volume received the “Diapason d’Or de l’année 2013”; and a recital disc of works by Schumann, Liszt and Knussen which was chosen by NPR Music as one of the top 5 Chopin and Schumann albums of 2010.

The youngest student to attend Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Kirill Gerstein was just 14 when he moved to the United States. Focussing increasingly on the classical repertoire, he studied with Solomon Mikowsky in New York, Dmitri Bashkirov in Madrid and Ferenc Rados in Budapest. In 2001, he won the first of a series of prestigious accolades: First Prize at the 10th Arthur Rubinstein Competition and, the following year, a Gilmore Young Artist Award. In 2010 Kirill Gerstein was awarded both an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Gilmore Artist Award, which provided the funds for him to commission new works from Timothy Andres, Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and Brad Mehldau.