Nikolai Lugansky (piano)

Performed by Nikolai Lugansky (piano)

The programme for the concert will be posted at a later date

Age category 6+

Described by Gramophone as “the most trailblazing and meteoric performer of all” in Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, and capable of great refinement and “crystalline beauty” (The Financial Times) in Mozart and Schubert, Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist of extraordinary depth and versatility.

Concerto highlights for the 2015–2016 season include Lugansky’s debut with Berliner Philharmoniker and return engagements with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker and the San Francisco, Boston and NHK symphony orchestras. Tours this season include concerts in Europe with the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Yuri Temirkanov, a BBC Prom and a Brahms trio tour with Leonidas Kavakos and Gautier Capuçon. In 2016 he will undertake a cycle of all of Prokofiev’s piano concertos with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the orchestra and birth of the composer.

Upcoming recital performances include the Alte Oper Frankfurt, London’s Wigmore Hall (with Alexander Kniazev), the Konzerthauser Berlin and Vienna, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and the Great Hall of the St Petersburg Philharmonia. Lugansky regularly appears at some of the world's most distinguished festivals, including La Roque d’Anthéron, and the Verbier, Rheingau and Edinburgh International festivals.

An award winning recording artist, Nikolai Lugansky records exclusively for the Naïve-Ambroisie label. His recital CD featuring Rachmaninov's Piano Sonatas won the Diapason d’Or and an ECHO Klassik Award while his recording of concertos by Grieg and Prokofiev with Kent Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. His earlier recordings have also won a number of awards, including a Diapason d'Or, BBC Music Magazine Award and ECHO Klassik prize. Lugansky’s disc, featuring Chopin’s two Piano Concertos, was released in summer 2014 and a new solo recital disc with the Schubert C minor sonata and Impromptus D.935 was released in November 2015.

Lugansky is Artistic Director of the Tambov Rachmaninov Festival and is also a supporter of, and regular performer at, the Rachmaninov Estate and Museum of Ivanovka. He performed the composer’s Piano Concerto No.3 at the closing concert of the inaugural Ivanovka Rachmaninov Festival in June 2014 with the Russian National Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev. Nikolai Lugansky studied at Moscow’s Central Music School and the Moscow Conservatoire where his teachers included Tatiana Kestner, Tatiana Nikolayeva and Sergei Dorensky. He was awarded the honour of People’s Artist of Russia in April 2013.