Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, winner of the 2016 Gramophone Artist of the Year Award, has made a spectacular rise in the world of classical music as a soloist, both in recital and with orchestra, as well as a performer of chamber music and Lied and as a composer. He has recently added to his considerable list of accolades a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album, thanks to his double CD of Liszt’s music entitled “Transcendental”, his third work as an exclusive artist on the Deutsche Grammophon label. In the words of The Times, Trifonov is “undoubtedly the most astonishing pianist of our time”.

Throughout the 2021-22 season, Daniil Trifonov continues to offer concert and recital performances, exploring lesser-known music of his Russian compatriots. With the Concertgebouw Orchestra led by Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, he will perform a piano concerto by a Soviet composer who predates Shostakovich: Alexander Mosolov’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Alternating his performances of Mason Bates’ Piano Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic and Lahav Shani, he will play Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and the following month Piano Concerto No. 1 by the same composer along with Alfred Schnittke’s Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra with the Montreal Symphony under its new music director, Rafael Payare. As with most of Trifonov’s seasons, he also collaborates in 2021-22 with his teacher and mentor Sergei Babayan, performing a two-piano programme of Rachmaninoff’s music at La Scala in Milan, preceded by stops in Florence, Rome and Turin.

Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1991, Trifonov began his musical training at the age of five and attended the Gnessin Music School in Moscow as a student of Tatiana Zelikman. He continued his piano studies with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He also studied composition and continues to compose for piano, chamber ensembles and orchestra.