Kirill Gerstein

Kirill Gerstein is one of today's most compelling and wide-ranging pianists — a searching artist whose curiosity spans Baroque suites and Classical concertos, contemporary premieres, jazz and cabaret. He appears with the world's leading orchestras and conductors and in recital at halls such as Carnegie Hall, the Berliner Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie and Wigmore Hall.

A champion of the music of our time, he has commissioned and premiered works by Thomas Adès, Chick Corea, Brad Mehldau, Oliver Knussen, Timo Andres and Francisco Coll. His world-premiere recording of Adès's Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony won the 2020 Gramophone Award and was nominated for three Grammys, and he has since performed the work more than 60 times worldwide. His album "Music in Time of War" (Debussy and Komitas) received a 2025 Opus Klassik special award. He records for Platoon/Apple Music, myrios, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, ECM and Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings.

Born in Voronezh, Russia, in 1979, Gerstein taught himself jazz from his parents' record collection, became the youngest student ever admitted to Berklee College of Music, and went on to study at the Manhattan School of Music and with Dmitri Bashkirov and Ferenc Rados. He won First Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein Competition and received the Gilmore Artist Award and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He is Professor of Piano at Berlin's Hanns Eisler Hochschule and on the faculty of Kronberg Academy, where his free online seminar series has reached over 150,000 viewers.