Ilya Gringolts, Kirill Gerstein

“One can hardly play the violin more expressively, more uncompromisingly than Gringolts.” – Süddeutsche Zeitung 

Ilya Gringolts wins over audiences with his highly virtuosic playing and sophisticated interpretations and is always seeking out new musical challenges. As a sought-after soloist, Ilya Gringolts devotes himself to the great orchestral repertoire as well as to contemporary and rare works; he is also passionate about historical performance practices. His concert programmes include virtuosic early repertoire by Leclair and Locatelli as well as Paganini’s solo and orchestral works or Mendelssohn’s violin concerto on gut strings. Many composers have written new works for him, most recently Chaya Czernowin, Lotta Wennäkoski, Mirela Ivičević, Augusta Read Thomas, Beat Furrer and Bernhard Lang. 

Following recent collaborations with orchestras such as Oslo Philharmonic, Hungarian National Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra or Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, highlights of the 2025/26 season include appearances with the Luxembourg Philharmonic, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and the Düsseldorf Symphony. Ilya Gringolts is also Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto’s 2025/26 artist in residence. With his long-standing musical partner, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, he embarks on an extended tour, this time with a programme on period instruments, including works by Vivaldi, Geminiani and Tartini as well as more contemporary composers such as Gubaidulina and Weinberg. 

Ilya Gringolts has performed with renowned orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Recent highlights have been joint projects with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra Rome, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Wiener Symphoniker, Bamberger Symphoniker, Helsinki Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Orquesta de Valencia, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, KBS Symphony Orchestra, and Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra. From his violin, he regularly leads projects with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Bern, and Ensemble Resonanz. This season he also leads the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and Kammerakademie Potsdam. 

For his Diapason d’Or and Gramophone Editor’s Choice Award-winning recording of Locatelli’s Il labirinto armonico (2021), Ilya Gringolts also led the Finnish Baroque Orchestra from the instrument. This was followed in the same year by the solo CD Ciaccona with works by Bach, Pauset, Gerhard, and Holliger, which also received the Gramophone Editor’s Choice Award. His extensive discography of highly acclaimed CD productions for Deutsche Grammophon, BIS, and Hyperion, among others, also includes the critically acclaimed recording of Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin and the recording of the complete violin works of Stravinsky (2018), recorded with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia under Dima Slobodeniouk and awarded the Diapason d’Or. 

As first violinist of the Gringolts Quartet, he has enjoyed great success at the Salzburg Festival, Lucerne Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and Teatro La Fenice in Venice. A highly esteemed chamber musician, Ilya Gringolts regularly collaborates with artists such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Alexander Lonquich, Peter Laul, Aleksandar Madžar, Christian Poltéra and Lawrence Power. 

After studying violin and composition with Tatiana Liberova and Zhanneta Metallidi in St. Petersburg, he attended the Juilliard School of Music, where he studied with Itzhak Perlman. He won the International Violin Competition Premio Paganini (1998) and remains the youngest winner in the competition’s history; he was also named a BBC New Generation Artist at the outset of his career. In addition to his professor position at the Zurich University of the Arts, Ilya Gringolts was appointed to the renowned Accademia Chigiana in Siena in 2021. He is also artistic advisor of the Mizmorim Festival in Switzerland. Ilya Gringolts plays a Stradivari (1718 “ex-Prové”) violin. 

”Pianist Kirill Gerstein is a real phenomenon... The great musical landmarks of this evening were entertaining yet full of depth... Gerstein presents himself as a true artist, as a poet of sound who knows how to cast a spell on his listeners.” – Der Tagesspiegel 

Fascination for musical discovery combined with boundless curiosity, imagination, and virtuosity have established Kirill Gerstein as one of today’s most prolific and compelling performers. Gerstein is a searching artist. As a pianist, curator, educator, musical leader, and artistic collaborator, his exploration of resonant themes across a vast spectrum of repertoire - from Baroque suites and Classical concerti to contemporary creations, jazz, and cabaret – has nourished relationships with many of the world’s leading orchestras, conductors, instrumentalists, singers, composers, festivals, recording labels, and media platforms.  

Highlights of the past season include Gerstein’s Carnegie Hall/Stern Auditorium solo recital debut, marking Ferruccio Busoni’s centenary with performances of his Piano Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Orchestre National de France, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon; Gershwin with the Staatskapelle Dresden on ZDF German national television’s traditional New Year’s eve gala broadcast; the closing concert of the Musikfest Berlin performing Messiaen’s From the Canyons to the Stars with Sir Simon Rattle; the Berg Kammerkonzert with Ilya Gringolts, Heinz Holliger and Chamber Orchestra of Europe; Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto with Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; returns to Japan and Korea performing Brahms 2nd Piano Concerto; engagements with the orchestras of St. Louis, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Atlanta; a release on the ECM label of Chick Corea’s The Visitors with legendary vibraphonist, Gary Burton; a poignantly timely program with the Wiener Symphoniker pairing Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon with Beethoven’s Emperor concerto followed by a satirical encore by Hanns Eisler; and an interdisciplinary project with the Ruhr Piano Festival uniting school children, renowned choreographers, scholars and world music authorities around the music of Armenian priest, musicologist, and composer, Vardapet Komitas. 

Media projects, broadcasts, and digital innovation represent an integral part of Gerstein’s creativity. He has recorded for Platoon/Apple Music, myrios, Deutsche Grammophon, DECCA, Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings, with performances filmed by Unitel, Accentus Music, and EuroArts, broadcast on ORF, BBC, ARTE, and Marquee TV, and streamed on medici.tv and STAGE+. Gerstein’s “Music in Time of War”, pairing late piano works by Claude Debussy with pieces by Vardapet Komitas earned him a 2025 special Opus Klassik Award for exceptional curation. Expanding the traditional album concept, the recording is integrated into a hardcover book containing a wealth of documentary images and original scholarship. 

Gerstein’s world première recording of Thomas Adès’ Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the Boston Symphony conducted by the composer was nominated for three Grammys and received the 2020 Gramophone Award. His recording of Adès’ The Tempest Suite, with violinist Christian Tetzlaff, was released on the Platoon label in 2025. Other noteworthy Gerstein albums include Strauss’s Enoch Arden with the great Swiss actor, Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire, The Downfall); Tchaikovsky’s complete Piano Concertos (including the 1st Concerto in the composer’s original urtext version) with Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic; The Gershwin Moment with the St. Louis Symphony and David Robertson, including special appearances from American singer-songwriter Storm Large and Gary Burton; and Mozart Four-Hand Piano Sonatas with Ferenc Rados. 

A true champion of music of our time, Gerstein has commissioned and premièred new works by Timo Andres, Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and Brad Mehldau, among others. Since giving the world première of Thomas Adès’ Concerto Piano and Orchestra in 2019, Gerstein has performed the work over 60times, with 20 different orchestras on three continents. Gerstein also recently recorded Thomas Larcher’s Piano Concerto with the Bergen Philharmonic and Ed Gardner for ECM. His premiere performances of Francisco Coll’s Two Waltzes Toward Civilization at Carnegie Hall will be followed by the creation of Coll’s new Piano Concerto with Sir Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2026. 

Gerstein is dedicated to learning. He is currently Professor of Piano at Berlin’s Hanns Eisler Hochschule and on the faculty of Kronberg Academy. At Kronberg Academy, his series of free online seminars featuring conversations with the 21st Century’s leading artistic minds has to date reached an audience of over 150,000 viewers. His guests have included Ai Weiwei, Brad Melhdau, Thomas Adès, Iván Fischer, Alex Ross, Matthew Aucoin, Kirill Serebrennikov, Elizabeth Wilson, Simon & Gerard McBurney, Robert Levin, Reinhard Goebel, Simon Callow, Emma Smith, Deborah Borda, Sir Antonio Pappano, and the late Kaija Saariaho. Gerstein also coaches at the Verbier Festival Academy and at IMS Prussia Cove. 

Born in 1979 in Voronezh, Russia, Gerstein attended one of the country’s special music schools for gifted children and taught himself to play jazz at home by listening to his parents’ record collection. Following a chance encounter with Gary Burton in St. Petersburg when he was 14, he was invited as the youngest student to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. At the age of 16, Gerstein completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at New York’s Manhattan School of Music, followed by further studies with Dmitri Bashkirov in Madrid and Ferenc Rados in Budapest. First Prize winner at the 10th Arthur Rubinstein Competition, in 2010, Gerstein received the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award, as well as an Avery Fisher Career Grant. He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music in 2021.