Kirill Gerstein
The Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein won several major awards in the U.S., where he was partly trained. He is a truly international figure, familiar as a pianist in several countries, and dividing his time between the U.S., where he became a citizen in 2003, and Germany, where he is a noted educator. Of Jewish background, Gerstein was born in Voronezh, in what was then the Soviet Union, on October 23, 1979. He started playing the piano at age three, and was influenced not only by classical piano teachers but the jazz from his parents' collection that he heard on the family record player. He took home his first prize, at the International Bach Competition in Poland when he was 11, but it was jazz that led him to a breakthrough: meeting jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton at a festival in St. Petersburg where Burton was performing, he was invited to study jazz on scholarship at Boston's Berklee College of Music. He moved on from Berklee to the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Solomon Mikowsky and earned both bachelor's and master's degrees before turning 20. Since then, his performing and recording activities have centered mostly on classical music, but he has remained interested in jazz, commissioning new works by pianists Chick Corea and Brad Mehldau, and becoming, in 2018, one of few pianists from the Russian sphere to perform Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Piano Concerto in F. Gerstein went on for private lessons in Budapest, Madrid, and Italy, and when he was ready to begin his concert career he found solo engagements in both North America (with the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, among many other ensembles) and Europe (with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, and the London Philharmonic, to name just a few). He has appeared at the Blossom Music Festival in Cleveland and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, among other major North American summer festivals. In prize competitions, he was unusually effective, winning the Gilmore Young Artist Award in 2002 and going on to win the Gilmore Artist Award at the biannual Gilmore Festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a prestigious honor that carried a $300,000 cash prize. Another major award was the Avery Fisher Career Grant, bestowed in 2010 by New York's Lincoln Center. Gerstein made his recording debut on Oehms Classics in 2004, but since then has recorded mostly for Germany's Myrios label, issuing a performance of Busoni's Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo in 2019. His performance of the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16, won Germany's ECHO Klassik recording industry award. Gerstein lives and works in both the U.S. and in Germany, where he teaches piano at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart.
© James Manheim /TiVo
Similar artists
-
Weinberg: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 7; Flute Concerto No. 1
City Of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Kirill Gerstein, Marie-Christine Zupancic, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 16/09/2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Tchaikovsky Project - Complete Symphonies - Orchestral Works - Complete Piano Concertos
Czech Philharmonic, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Gerstein
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 30/08/2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2
Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Gerstein, Kirill Petrenko
Classical - Released by Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings on 19/05/2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Busoni: Piano Concerto (Live)
Kirill Gerstein, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 15/03/2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Adès conducts Adès (World Premiere Recordings)
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Thomas Adès, Kirill Gerstein, Christianne Stotijn, Mark Stone
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 28/02/2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Liszt: Transcendental Etudes
Solo Piano - Released by Myrios Classics on 7/12/2022
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Debussy / Komitas: Music in Time of War
Kirill Gerstein, Thomas Adès, Ruzan Mantashyan, Katia Skanavi
Classical - Released by Platoon on 12/04/2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Alexander Scriabin: Symphony No. 2, Op. 29 & Piano Concerto, Op. 20
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Kirill Gerstein, Vasily Petrenko
Classical - Released by Lawo Classics on 7/09/2017
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
-
Alexander Scriabin: Symphony No. 1, Op. 26 / Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko, Kirill Gerstein
Classical - Released by Lawo Classics on 17/09/2018
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Gershwin Moment – Rhapsody in Blue & Concerto in F
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 16/02/2018
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Gershwin Moment (Live)
Kirill Gerstein, St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, David Robertson, Gary Burton
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 16/02/2018
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Piano Recital: Gerstein, Kirill - BACH, J.S. / BEETHOVEN, L. van / SCRIABIN, A. / WILD, E.
Classical - Released by Oehms Classics on 1/01/2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Sonatas for Viola and Piano, Vol. 2
Tabea Zimmermann, Kirill Gerstein
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 9/10/2012
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky & Prokofiev: Piano Concertos
Kirill Gerstein, Berlin Deutsches Symphony Orchestra, James Gaffigan
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 10/03/2015
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Imaginary Pictures
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 5/05/2014
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
LISZT Transcendental Etudes (5.1 Edition)
Solo Piano - Released by Myrios Classics on 7/12/2022
Gramophone Editor's Choice24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Multicanal 5.1 -
Rachmaninoff 150
Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko, Kirill Gerstein
Classical - Released by Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings on 15/09/2023
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Sonatas for Piano Four Hands, K. 521 & 497
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 21/05/2021
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Thomas Adès: In Seven Days
Kirill Gerstein, Thomas Adès, Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 3/07/2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: String Quartet, Op. 67 & Piano Quintet, Op. 34
Hagen Quartett, Kirill Gerstein
Classical - Released by Myrios Classics on 18/10/2019
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo