In 2019, at the age of 22, the French pianist Alexandre Kantorow won the first prize and the gold medal at the renowned International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. In the same year he received the award Révélation Musicale de l’année from the French critics. This was followed in 2020 by two Victoires de la Musique Classique: for Recording of the Year and as Instrumental Soloist of the Year.
Alexandre Kantorow was born in 1997, grew up in a family of musicians, and studied with Pierre-Alain Volondat, Igor Lazko, Frank Braley and Rena Shereshevskaya. He has a particular passion for the works of Brahms, and an equally strong interest in contemporary music.
He has already worked with leading orchestras and conductors such as the Staatskapelle Berlin under Antonio Pappano and Lorenzo Viotti, the Munich Philharmonic under Thomas Hengelbrock, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, as well as the Orchestre de Paris under Jukka-Pekka Saraste, the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer, the Orquestra Gulbenkian, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.
Solo recitals have taken Alexandre Kantorow to venues including the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Philharmonie de Paris and the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, as well as to numerous international festivals.
In summer 2023 Alexandre Kantorow makes his debut at the Salzburg Festival. His debut at Carnegie Hall in New York will follow in October. Other planned highlights for the 2023/24 season include concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic under Tugan Sokhiev, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the BBC Proms, a residency with the Gürzenich Orchestra in Cologne under François-Xavier Roth, and tours with the Orchestre National de France and with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra under Jaap van Zweden.
Alexandre Kantorow is an exclusive artist with the label BIS Records and has already made several acclaimed award-winning albums. His most recent recording, released in April 2022, is of Saint-Saëns’ First and Second Piano Concertos.
