Kirill Gerstein
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kirill Gerstein (b. 1979) is a Russian pianist. He was the First Prize winner at the 2001 Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. He was chosen to receive a 2002 Gilmore Young Artist Award, and was selected as Carnegie Hall's "Rising Star" for the 2005-2006 season.
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[edit] History
Kirill Gerstein was born in 1979 in Voronezh, Russia. At the age of 11, he won his first competition - the International Bach Competition in Gorzów, Poland. He attended Berklee's summer program in 1993 and was invited to attend the college on full scholarship the following summer, becoming the youngest college student in the school's history at the age of 14.
He then attended the Manhattan School of Music with Solomon Mikowsky and earned both his Bachelor and Masters of Music degrees by the age of 20. His studies later took him to Madrid with the famed piano pedagogue Dmitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez Mehner. He is also one of only six pianists to have been selected to study in 2003 and 2004 at the prestigious International Piano Academy Lake Como.
[edit] Performances
Kirill Gerstein made his major orchestral debut with David Zinman and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra in September 2000. He was immediately re-engaged the following season. He also toured Germany with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra led by Charles Dutoit and appeared in the London BBC Proms with cellist Steven Isserlis.
Gerstein made his Ravinia Festival concerto debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Christoph Eschenbach in 2002. He also appeared in recital at the 2002 Gilmore Piano Festival, on Ravinia's Rising Star Series and in the Boston Conservatory's Piano Masters Series.
On March 17 and 18, 2006, Gerstein stepped in for Boris Berezovsky as the soloist in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op.30 with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra when Berezovsky withdrawn from the two concerts in Hong Kong due to illness.
[edit] Recordings
His debut recital recording of works by Bach, Beethoven, Scriabin and Gershwin arranged by Earl Wild was released in 2004 on the Oehms Classics label.
[edit] Upcoming Performances
In 2006 and 2007, he will perform with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. He will also collaborate with Steven Isserlis, Kolja Blacher, Clemens Hagen and Tabea Zimmermann in various chamber music projects throughout Europe.
