Kirill Gerstein
Kirill Gerstein’s fascination with musical discoveries, combined with his curiosity, imagination and virtuosity, has made him one of the greatest performers of our time. Highlights of the past season include his debut as a soloist at Carnegie Hall/Stern Auditorium, Busoni’s Piano Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Orchestre National de France, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, his appearance at the traditional ZDF New Year’s Eve Gala, the closing concert of the Musikfest Berlin with Messiaen’s Des canyons aux étoiles ... under Simon Rattle, the Berg Chamber Concert with Ilya Gringolts, Heinz Holliger and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
He has recorded albums for Platoon/Apple Music, Deutsche Grammophon, DECCA and Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings. His concerts have been filmed by Unitel, Accentus Music and EuroArts and streamed live on ORF, BBC, ARTE, medici.tv and STAGE+. He received the Opus Klassik Special Prize for curatorial achievement for the album Music in Time of War, which combines late piano works by Debussy with pieces by Komitas Vardapet. The world’s first recording of Thomas Adès’ Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer, was nominated for three Grammys and won the 2020 Gramophone Award. His recording of Adès’ The Tempest Suite with Christian Tetzlaff was released by Platoon in 2025. Other releases include Strauss’ Enoch Arden with
Bruno Ganz and Tchaikovsky’s complete piano concertos with Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic.
As an advocate of contemporary music, he has commissioned and premiered works by Timo Andres, Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and Brad Mehldau, among others. He recently recorded Thomas Larcher’s piano concerto with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner for ECM. Following the premiere of Francisco Coll’s Two Waltzes Toward Civilisation at Carnegie Hall, his new piano concerto will be presented in 2025/26 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Simon Rattle. Gerstein is also professor of piano at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin and at the Kronberg Academy.
At the age of 14, he was invited to become the youngest student at Berklee College of Music in Boston. At 16, he completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Manhattan School of Music in New York and continued his studies with Dmitri Bashkirov in Madrid and Ferenc Rados in Budapest. As winner of the 1st prize at the 10th Arthur Rubinstein Competition, he received the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2010. In 2021, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.
As of December 2025