*No admission for children under 1.2 meters for this performance.
On September 21, piano master Kirill Gerstein will present his first piano recital in Shanghai. Selected by UK's Bachtrack as one of the top 10 busiest pianists worldwide in 2024/2025, he is hailed by *The Guardian* as a model that integrates German-Austrian heritage with contemporary aesthetics.
Kirill Gerstein is one of the few all-around artists in today's international classical music scene who integrates performance, education, curation and creation. With his delicate, wise performance style that balances depth and tension, he has won high recognition from global authoritative media and the music industry.
Gerstein rose to fame at a young age with solid and profound skills. At 14, he became the youngest student at Berklee College of Music. At 16, he completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Manhattan School of Music. He later went to Madrid to study under Dmitri Bashkirov, and to Budapest for advanced training under Ferenc Rados. He won the first prize at the 10th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, and claimed both the Gilmore Artist Award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2010.
The biggest highlight of this concert is the ingenious program curation, which focuses on two opposing core figures in the 19th-century romantic music scene — Liszt and Brahms. With two sets of works with completely different styles and concepts, it reproduces the most classic "contest" between program music and absolute music in classical history, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in understanding the two development veins of romantic music in one performance.
Gerstein accurately captures this unique vein of music history. The first half of the concert focuses on Liszt's "program music" creations, selecting *Three Petrarch Sonnets* and *Dante Fantasy Sonata*. The second half centers on Brahms' *Scherzo in E-flat Minor* and *Piano Sonata in F Minor*, showing the artistic charm of "absolute music" that conveys emotions purely through sound without external references. It is worth mentioning that contemporary composer Brett Dean's *Hommage à Brahms: Hafenkneipenmusik* will also make a surprise appearance.
Program List
3 Sonetti del Petrarca, S.158
Franz Liszt
I Benedetto sia il giorno
II Pace non trovo
III I' vidi in terra angelici costumi
Après une lecture du Dante. Fantasia quasi Sonata, excerpt from *Années de pèlerinage* II, S. 161, No. 7
Franz Liszt
Interval
Scherzo in E-flat minor, Op. 4
Johannes Brahms
Hommage à Brahms: II. Hafenkneipenmusik
Brett Dean
Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 5
Johannes Brahms
I Allegro maestoso
II Andante espressivo
III Scherzo, Allegro energico - Trio
IV Intermezzo, Andante molto
V Finale, Allegro moderato ma rubato
*Program is subject to on-site adjustment
Artist:
Kirill Gerstein
With endless curiosity, imagination and exquisite skills, Kirill Gerstein keeps exploring music diligently, and has now become one of the most productive and convincing performers. He is a highly exploratory artist who holds multiple identities including pianist, curator, educator, music director and artistic collaborator, and covers an extremely wide range of repertoires — from Baroque suites, classical concertos, to contemporary works, jazz and popular songs — to dig out resonant themes, which has helped him build good relationships with many top orchestras, conductors, instrumentalists, vocalists, composers, music festivals, record labels and media platforms around the world.
Gerstein has recently been selected as "Artist-in-Residence" of Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, "Artist Focus" of London Symphony Orchestra, and "Artist-in-Residence" of Aix-en-Provence Festival. He also curated the three-part concert series "Busoni and His World" at Wigmore Hall in London. To commemorate the 150th birthday of Rachmaninoff, he released a highly praised album in collaboration with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Kirill Petrenko. During his residency at the Ruhr Piano Festival, he joined hands with jazz master Brad Mehldau to present a highly creative repertoire combining serious composition and improvisation. In addition, at the Tanglewood Festival, he collaborated with the iconic music figure, performance artist and composer HK Gruber, to perform the cabaret music that was popular in Berlin in the 1920s.
Media projects, radio programs and digital innovative works are an indispensable part of Gerstein's creations. He has recorded albums for labels including Apple Music Platoon, German myrios, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca and Berlin Philharmonic. His live performances have been filmed by media such as Unitel, Accentus Music and EuroArts, broadcast on ORF (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation), BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), European public channel ARTE and UK's Marquee TV, and streamed on medici.tv and STAGE+ platforms. Gerstein's latest media project is titled "Music in Wartime", which pairs Debussy's late piano works with works by Armenian priest, musicologist and composer Vardapet Komitas. This project goes beyond the concept of traditional album production: the record is attached to a hardcover book that contains a large number of documentary photos and academic articles written by specially invited contributors.
Gerstein collaborated with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (conducted by the composer himself) to record Thomas Adès' *Piano Concerto*, which is the world premiere recording of the work. It was not only nominated for three Grammy Awards, but also won the 2020 Gramophone Award. Other important records of Gerstein include: Richard Strauss' *Enoch Arden* (recorded in collaboration with the great Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, who starred in the films *Wings of Desire* and *Downfall*), the complete Tchaikovsky piano concertos (recorded in collaboration with the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Semyon Bychkov, including *Piano Concerto No. 1* based on the composer's manuscript), *Gershwin Moment* (recorded in collaboration with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Robertson, with special guest American singer-songwriter Storm Large and legendary vibraphonist Gary Burton); Mozart's *Piano Sonata for Four Hands* (recorded in collaboration with Ferenc Rados). In this season, BBC Radio 3 will focus on Gerstein, broadcasting his performed concertos and solo works for a whole week. Gerstein will also appear on ZDF (German TV channel) to participate in the traditional New Year's Eve program broadcast in Dresden, during which he will perform Gershwin's *Piano Concerto in F*.
Gerstein strongly promotes contemporary music. He has commissioned and premiered many new works by composers, including works by Timo Andres, Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and Brad Mehldau. Since Gerstein premiered Thomas Adès' *Piano Concerto* in 2019, he has performed the work more than 50 times with over 20 orchestras across three continents. He recently collaborated with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner to record Thomas Larcher's *Piano Concerto* for the ECM label. In the 2025/2026 season, he will premiere a new concerto specially written for him by Spanish composer Francisco Coll.
Gerstein is also committed to education. He is currently a professor of piano at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin, and also teaches at the Kronberg Academy. He hosted a series of free online seminars at the Kronberg Academy, inviting top 21st-century artists to share insights in the form of conversations, which has attracted more than 150,000 views. His invited guests include: Ai Weiwei, Brad Mehldau, Thomas Adès, Iván Fischer, Alex Ross, Matthew Aucoin, Kirill Serebrennikov, Elizabeth Wilson, Simon McBurney and Gerard McBurney, Robert Levin, Reinhard Goebel, Simon Callow, Emma Smith, Deborah Borda, Sir Antonio Pappano, and the late Kaija Saariaho. Gerstein also teaches at the Verbier Festival Academy and the International Music Seminar at Prussia Cove.
Highlights of this season include: participating in the closing concert of the Berlin Festival, performing Messiaen's *Des Canyons aux étoiles* with the Karajan Academy Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle; performing Berg's *Kammerkonzert* with Ilya Gringolts, Heinz Holliger and the European Chamber Orchestra; to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Ferruccio Busoni's death, performing Busoni's *Piano Concerto* with the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon; performing Rachmaninoff's *Piano Concerto No. 3* with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali; performing Schoenberg's *Ode to Napoleon* and Beethoven's *Emperor Concerto* with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robin Ticciati; returning to Japan and South Korea to perform Brahms' *Piano Concerto No. 2*; performing Shostakovich's two piano concertos with the Dresden Staatskapelle conducted by Marie Jacquot; re-performing with the St. Louis, San Francisco, Pittsburgh and Atlanta symphony orchestras; holding a recital at Carnegie Hall, during which he will premiere Francisco Coll's *Two Waltzes to Civilization* (the work will also be performed at Severance Hall in Cleveland, Montreal and Napa); in addition, he will hold recitals at the Golden Hall in Vienna, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, and Wigmore Hall in London. Gerstein will also act as both soloist and conductor, performing Beethoven's *Piano Concerto No. 4* with the European Chamber Orchestra, several piano concertos by Mozart, Salieri and Beethoven with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, *Rhapsody in Blue* with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Beethoven's *Piano Concerto No. 1* with the Czech Philharmonic.
Gerstein was born in Voronezh, Russia in 1979, and studied at a special music school for highly gifted children. He also taught himself to play jazz at home by listening to records collected by his parents. At the age of 14, he met Gary Burton by chance in St. Petersburg, and was invited to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA, becoming the youngest student in the school. At the age of 16, he completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Manhattan School of Music in New York, and then continued his advanced studies under Dmitri Bashkirov in Madrid and Ferenc Rados in Budapest. Gerstein won the first prize at the 10th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award and the Avery Fisher Career Grant at the same time. In 2021, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music degree by Manhattan School of Music.
