Stanislav Bunin

Pianist Stanislav Bunin won the 1985 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland. He has been active for much of his career in Japan, his wife's native country. Bunin was born September 25, 1966, in Moscow. His family was musical and otherwise artistic on both sides; his grandfather, Heinrich Neuhaus, was a famed Russian pedagogue, and his father, Stanislav Neuhaus, was a pianist. His grandmother Zinaida was the second wife of novelist Boris Pasternak, and he is also related to Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. At age six, Bunin began studies with Elena Richter at the Moscow Central Music School. He remained there for 11 years and then moved on to the Moscow Conservatory, where his principal teacher was Sergei Dorensky. Bunin began to rack up prizes in his late teens, taking the Concourse Marguerite Long - Jacques Thibaud in Paris in 1983. Two years later, his International Chopin Competition win -- at the age of just 19 -- marked a major breakthrough. Bunin left the Soviet Union in 1988 and settled in Hamburg, Germany. He was promptly signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label and released his debut album there, featuring works of Robert Schumann, in 1989. Bunin then moved to Japan. Between 1986 and 1996, he gave some 300 recitals in major Japanese cities. He also toured in the West, appearing as a soloist with such groups as the Boston Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Munich Philharmonic. In Japan, he founded a special piano course at the country's largest private music school, the Senzoku Gakuen in Kawasaki, and taught there from 1991 to 1997. Bunin released several more albums on Deutsche Grammophon and also recorded for EMI and other labels. He has a reputation as a Chopin specialist, and in the late 1990s and early 2000s decade, he toured frequently with Chopin recitals in Japan and Europe and as far afield as Argentina. Bunin has been less visible in the 2010s and 2020s, but he remains active; throughout his career, he has concertized to raise money for charity, and in 2010, he appeared at a Stanislav Bunin Charity Gala concert at Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Bunin's 1989 Schumann album, which featured highly distinctive interpretations, was reissued in digital form in 2023 by Deutsche Grammophon.
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