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Described by The New York Times as “a genuine artist, with a thoughtfully conceived and poetic interpretation,” Minsoo Sohn is a Korean-American pianist known for his musical intelligence and masterful virtuosity.
Sohn has toured extensively throughout North and South America, Europe, and Korea. As a soloist, he has performed alongside leading orchestras including The Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Jerusalem Camerata, Holland Symfonia, National Orchestra of Belgium, Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, Korean National Orchestra, and KBS Symphony, among others; collaborating with conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Pietari Inkinen, and Sasha Goetzel.
Recent and forthcoming 2024/25 highlights include a duo tour with fellow pianist Yunchan Lim across Korea and at the Verbier, Gstaad Menuhin, and La Roque d’Antheron festivals in Europe; and a series of recitals playing Beethoven’s Sonatas across Europe, which will continue into his 2025/26 season with recitals in Korea, Japan, and North America.
Sohn’s recordings for Honens and Sony Classical have received international acclaim. Of his recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, The New York Times writes that it is a “beautifully articulated, radiant interpretation,” and named it one of its top recordings of the year. His Sony Classical 9-album boxset of the Complete Beethoven Piano Sonatas was the culmination of his acclaimed four-year immersion in the composer’s music including concert series, recordings and writings.
Sohn owes much of his success to his mentors, Russell Sherman and Wha Kyung Byun, with whom he studied with at the New England Conservatory in Boston. After teaching at Michigan State University, Sohn returned to Korea as a much sought after performer and teacher, and he joined the faculty of the Korean National University of Arts. He has also adjudicated on the jury of prominent international piano competitions, including the Honens and Busoni Competitions. In 2023, Sohn joined the piano faculty at New England Conservatory.
From Bach to Adès, pianist Kirill Gerstein’s playing is distinguished by a ferocious technique and discerning intelligence, matched with an energetic, imaginative musical presence that places him at the top of the international profession, with solo and concerto engagements taking him from Europe to the United States, East Asia and Australia. Born in the former Soviet Union, Gerstein is an American citizen based in Berlin whose heritage combines the traditions of Russian, American and Central European music-making with an insatiable curiosity. These qualities and the relationships that he has developed with orchestras, conductors, instrumentalists, singers and composers, have led him to explore a huge spectrum of repertoire both new and old.
In the coming season, Gerstein will feature as a Spotlight Artist with the London Symphony Orchestra, performing four concerti across the season at the orchestra’s Barbican Centre home and on tour, including Adès with Antonio Pappano, Rachmaninov and Ravel with Susanna Mälkki, and Gershwin with Simon Rattle. Gerstein’s flair for curation recently also found expression as Artist-in-Residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, in presenting a three-part concert series entitled ‘Busoni and His World’ at London’s Wigmore Hall, and as resident artist at the Festival Aix-en-Provence.
Elsewhere during 2023-24 season, Gerstein will return to orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Nelsons, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Chamber Orchestra of Europe with Ticciati, Orchestre national de France with Măcelaru, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Shani, Boston Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic with Adès, Munich Philharmonic with Popelka, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala with Harding, Orchestre national de Lyon with Szeps-Znaider, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecila with Kavakos and with Hrůša, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich with Payare, Minnesota Orchestra with Søndergård, and the radio orchestras of Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Cologne, among others. In recital, Gerstein will reprise with Christian Tetzlaff Suite from The Tempest for violin and piano, which was written for them by Thomas Adès, for premières in New York, Washington, and Boston. Gerstein will also appear in solo recital at Carnegie Hall New York, Chamber Music Napa Valley, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Abu Dhabi Festival among others.
Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist who combines elegance and grace with powerful virtuosity, a true incarnation of the Russian tradition on the international classical stage. Recognised as a master of Russian and late romantic repertoire, Lugansky is renowned for his interpretations of Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Chopin and Debussy. He has received numerous awards for recordings and artistic merit and regularly works with top level conductors such as Yuri Temirkanov, Kent Nagano, Mikhail Pletnev, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Gianandrea Noseda, and Vladimir Jurowski. Concerto highlights for the 2020/21 season include performances with Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, and Russian National Orchestra at Philharmonie de Paris, the Cleveland Orchestra and NHK in Tokyo. Lugansky also tours Europe with Malmö Symfoniorkester and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. A regular recitalist the world over, during this season Lugansky appears in Paris, Prague, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus and Wigmore Hall in London. Lugansky regularly performs at the La Roque‑d’Anthéron Festival in France and will be at the Verbier Festival in Summer 2021.
In June 2019 Nikolai Lugansky received the Russian Federation National Award in Literature and Art, for his contribution to the development and advancement of Russian and international classical music culture over the past 20 years. Nikolai has won several awards for his many recordings. His recital CD featuring Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonatas won the Diapason d’Or, whilst his recording of concertos by Grieg and Prokofiev with Kent Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. Nikolai records for harmonia mundi; his most recent release ‘César Frank, Préludes, Fugues & Chorals’ (March 2020) won the Diapason d’Or.
Celebrated for combining consummate technique with rare sensitivity and depth, GRAMMY Award-winning Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov has made a spectacular ascent of the classical music world since taking both First Prize and the Grand Prix at the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition. ‘He has everything and more … tenderness and also the demonic element. I never heard anything like that,’ pianist Martha Argerich has said. Further awards include Artist of the Year for Musical America (2019) and Gramophone (2016). His current season includes concertos with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Antonio Pappano, and the Israel Philharmonic under Lahav Shani, a two-piano programme at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala with Sergei Babayan, and solo recitals at Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Konzerthaus. Trifonov records exclusively with Deutsche Grammophon, most recently Bach: The Art of Life.
Hunju Sohnn has been the pianist and coordinator of the Verbier Festival Academy’s viola class for more than 20 years. She received her Master’s degree from New England Conservatory, and holds a Doctoral degree for Piano Performance from Rice University. Her teachers included John Perry, Russell Sherman and Robert Roux. HunJu performs throughout Europe and America, while holding a teaching position at the Conservatoire Populaire de Musique Danse et Théâtre in Geneva.
Catherine Edwards has a varied career on both piano and organ, performing, broadcasting and recording as chamber pianist, accompanist and soloist. Her chamber music experience with groups such as Capricorn, The Nash Ensemble, Endymion and Composers’ Ensembles includes standard and contemporary repertoire, and she has worked closely with composers such as Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Steve Reich and John Adams. Edwards studied the piano with Phyllis Sellick and Vlado Perlemuter, and the organ with Ralph Downes and Gillian Weir. She has been the pianist and coordinator of the Verbier Festival Academy’s cello class for several years.
Tobias Koch’s extensive musical career has taken him across Europe, North America, the Middle East and far beyond as soloist, chamber musician and lied accompanist. He is the Music Prize Winner of the State Capital Düsseldorf and teaches at the Robert Schumann University of Düsseldorf and at the University of the Arts in Berlin. He has been pianist and coordinator of the Verbier Festival Academy’s violin class for a number of years and is a specialist in historical keyboard instruments.
Sought-after as a song accompanist and chamber musician, Jonathan Ware is a regular feature across the world’s leading venues, with recent appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Luxembourg’s Philharmonie, Barcelona’s L’Auditori, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal.
Ware opens the 2021/22 season with a string of dates in the UK alongside violinist Randall Goosby, violist Timothy Ridout and cellist Maciej Kułakowski, performing at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, St George’s Hall, Bristol, Leeds Town Hall and Wigmore Hall. European appearances follow including at Kölner Philharmonie with countertenor Bejun Mehta, Staatsoper unter den Linden and Lied Festival Würzburg. Devised with soprano Golda Schultz, the long-standing duo present their new programme of female composers to venues across Europe and North America, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Cologne and Aix-en-Provence. Titled ‘This Be Her Verse’, the programme was recorded for CD release on Alpha Classics in 2022.
Thomas Enhco, born in Paris, France in September 1988, is a French pianist and composer (jazz and classical music). He starts playing the violin and the piano at the age of 3, gives his first concerts and writes his first compositions at 6. At the age of 9, Didier Lockwood invites him to perform on stage with him at the jazz festivals of Antibes Juan-les-Pins, Vienne and Marciac. He studies jazz at CMDL and classical piano with the great master Gisèle Magnan. At 16, he enters the Paris Conservatory (CNSMDP), from which he is expelled two years later. Since then, he has released 8 albums as a leader and has been playing an average of 100 concerts per year around the world, both in classical and jazz venues and festivals.
His first album Esquisse, written and recorded at the age of 15 with his trio (and featuring drums-legend Peter Erskine) comes out in 2006. Thomas becomes then Laureate of Fonds d’Action SACEM.
In 2008 he is spotted by the great Japanese producer Itoh “88” Yasohachi, who makes him record three albums (Someday My Prince Will Come, The Window and the Rain in Japan and Jack and John with Jack Dejohnette and John Patitucci at Avatar Studios in New York) and invites him for ten tours in Japan, in solo, duo and trio.
In 2012, he moves to New York where he plays in jazz clubs and collaborates with many artists, and he releases this same year on Label Bleu his self-produced album Fireflies (winner of Victoires du Jazz 2013).
In 2014 he signs with Universal Music and records for label Verve his solo piano album Feathers (nominated for « Best album » at Victoires du Jazz 2015).
Parallel to his jazz career, Thomas Enhco develops in the classical music world. In 2016 he releases on legendary label Deutsche Grammophon the album Funambules, in duo with percussion virtuoso Vassilena Serafimova. Their explosive duet without borders tours worldwide and wins the 2nd Grand Prize at Osaka International Chamber Music Competition in 2017 (Japan).
In 2017, he makes his debut as a soloist with symphony orchestras in Gershwin’s Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue, Mozart’s Piano Concerto K.491 (no. 24), Ravel’s Concerto in G, John Adam’s Eros Piano, Bach’s Concerto for Four Keyboards (BWV 1065), Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and his own first Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, with Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Lorraine, Orchestre de Pau Pays de Béarn, Orchestre Régional Avignon Provence, Ensemble Appassionato, Geneva Camerata, Orchestre de Cannes, Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France and Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine, under the baton of conductors Julien Masmondet, Pierre Dumoussaud, Samuel Jean, Mathieu Herzog, Jean-Claude Casadesus, David Greilsammer, Junichi Hirokami, Benjamin Lévy, James Gaffigan and Fayçal Karoui. He is also invited as a soloist by Radio France Choir (dir. Sofi Jeannin) and Spirito Choir (dir. Nicole Corti) in programs around Brahms and his own compositions.
As a composer, Thomas Enhco has written more than 100 works and regularly gets commissions from orchestras, chamber music ensembles, soloists, choirs and festivals.
He has notably composed a Concerto for Piano and Orchestra and a Double Concerto for Piano, Marimba and Orchestra (premiere in February 2019) for the OPPB Orchestra, four pieces for pianist Lise de la Salle (album Bach Unlimited, Naïve 2017), a suite for Brass Quintet and Piano (for Local Brass Quintet — album Stay Tuned, Klarthe 2019), a piece for Choir and Piano (for Spirito Choir)… He has also composed the credits of radio shows “La Récréation” and “Le Grand Atelier” on France Inter, and two film scores: Aux Arts Citoyens by Daniel Schick (2010) and Les Cinq Parties du Monde by Gérard Mordillat (for which he wins the 2012 FIPA d’Or for Best Original Score).
Just before turning thirty, Thomas Enhco records for Sony Music the album Thirty, which comprises seven new solo pieces and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. (Release: February 2019 on Sony Classical, Paris concert on April 17, 2019 at La Cigale).
For the past ten years, he has been playing an average of 100 concerts per year around the world. Among the jazz venues that have invited him, are jazz festivals of Tokyo, Montreal, Vienne, Montreux, Istanbul, Gent, Middelheim, North Sea, La Villette, l’Olympia… and among the classical venues, are festivals of La Roque d’Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins, Philharmonie de Paris, Opéra de Bordeaux, Flagey in Brussels, French May in Hong Kong, Shanghai Grand Theater, Folle Journée de Nantes, Tokyo, Warsaw, New York, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, Beijing Concert Hall…
The Philharmonie de Paris features him regularly, equally as a jazz and as a classical artist, and offers him a “carte blanche” at the 2017 Jazz à la Villette festival, features him at its weekend around Bach and as a soloist in his own Concerto and in Ravel’s Concerto in G in 2018. In 2019, he will participate in the performances of the complete Piano Etudes by Philip Glass, with the composer.
He is invited by the main French television and radio shows (C à Vous – France 5, Quotidien – TMC, Le Grand Échiquier, Fauteuils d’Orchestre – France 2…) and his recordings and concerts are praised by the national and foreign press.
As an educator, he gives masterclasses on improvisation, teaches jazz (piano and violin) at CMDL and since 2018 writes the jazz section of bi-monthly magazine Pianiste.
Thomas Enhco has won numerous prizes and awards, among which the 3rd Grand Prize at the 2010 Martial Solal International Jazz Piano Competition, the 2010 Django d’Or « New Talent », the 2012 FIPA d’Or for Best Film Score, the 2013 Victoire du Jazz « Révélation » (also nominated at the 2015 Victoires du Jazz), the 2nd Grand Prize at the 2017 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, the 2017 Sacem ACEG Prize.
Collaborations with other artists include (Jazz): Didier Lockwood, Mike Stern, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jack DeJohnette, Gilad Hekselman, José James, Baptiste Trotignon, Ari Hoenig, Patrick Zimmerli, Dan Tepfer, Ibrahim Maalouf, Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani, David Enhco, Biréli Lagrène, Anne Paceo, Hugh Coltman, Peter Erskine, Daniel Humair, André Ceccarelli, Victor Lewis, John Patitucci, Hein Van de Geyn, Lew Soloff, Sylvain Luc, François & Louis Moutin, Joel Frahm, Cyrille Aimée…
(Classical): Vassilena Serafimova, Henri Demarquette, Renaud Capuçon, Natalie Dessay, Laurent Naouri, Jean- François Zygel, Michel Dalberto, Anne-Sofie Von Otter, the Arod, Hanson, Modigliani and Voce string quartets, Beatrice Rana, Jérôme Pernoo, Caroline Casadesus, Lise de la Salle, Déborah Nemtanu, Xavier Philips…
As well as pop singers Jane Birkin, Christophe, Oxmo Puccino, dancer and choreographer Marie-Claude Pietragalla, director Alain Sachs, cartoonist Aurélia Aurita…
As Pablo Casals once did before, Khatia Buniatishvili places the human being at the centre of her art. The fundamental values handed down from the Enlightenment are not up for discussion. Were there a fire and a choice to be made between child and painting, she would not hesitate for a second. Yet, once she had pulled the child from the blaze, she would take it to the Museum of Fine Arts so that it might become a painter. No need to save “the fire” (as Cocteau replied) because it already burns her eyes, rages in her fingers and warms her heart.
Khatia, born in Batumi, Georgia, by the Black Sea, on the longest day of 1987, knows the price of freedom and independence, and understands the energy needed to stand tall in life. The example set by her parents did not go unheeded. During the chaotic period her country went through, Khatia’s parents had to display great resourcefulness to keep poverty at bay. Her mother, who introduced her to music, sewed together magnificent dresses for both her daughters from bits of cloth that she scavenged here and there. The sisters saw before their very eyes a model of creativity for smiling in the face of adversity.
The piano, however, has never posed a problem for Khatia. She has been blessed with impressive ability, giving her first concert at the age of six. For fun, her mother would leave a new musical score each day on her piano and, hungry, Khatia’s long, octopus-like arms would devour them. As she has never had to struggle with her instrument, she has always considered pianos from the whole world as friends from whom she must draw the best, respecting the oddities of their characters and sampling the charms of their personalities; while at the same time never looking to change them or make them her martyrs. Her sister Gvantsa is an excellent pianist too. Together they make a quite complementary duo as one has her feet on the ground and the other is supersonic.
Khatia’s great career has come quite naturally, without a struggle. The sun has no need to move mountains to exist for it rises and shines for all. And these are the words that spring to mind when one sees her bursting onto the stage or in life: her hair flowing, her fine figure quite the Parisian, her lips smiling, her light sylph-like steps and her feline body. But the rose will show its thorns if it feels what it holds dear to be threatened. She won’t be made to give up a humanitarian project. She won’t be prevented from helping the country in which she was born and raised. She won’t be forced to play in a land that pours scorn on her values. She won’t have playing partners forced upon her who do not inspire human respect and great artistic admiration in equal measure. For that matter, nothing can be imposed on this young lady of the air whose wing-beats pollinate works and who sprinkles a musical cloud of golden powder to the four winds.
Franz Liszt is one of her heroes. He was the one with whom she wanted to venture first into the world of discography. Liszt is constantly pushing back the boundaries of what is possible. He innovates and is generous, bringing together popular and academic styles, the profane and sacred, nature and poetry – he transcends whatever he touches.
Khatia Buniatishvili avoids representation and self-intellectualisation. She could very well make her own the motto of her friend Martha Agerich, “Live and let live” – she too is a Gemini. She likes the complexity of things, not complication; paradoxes, not rigid oppositions that often prove to be sterile. She is at ease creating and less interested in reaction. Stimulated by the dialogue between the arts, she breathes the oxygen of imagination and finds balance in musing.
When it comes down to it, she remains this child fascinated with life and with beings who was already reading Dostoevsky and Chekhov at the age of nine, and for whom it was already quite clear that beauty would save the world. With no distinctions made: whatever is just will sound just and will make its own mark.
It is in just such a way that she approaches all styles from Baroque to modern in her CD “Motherland”, to demonstrate that true music has no need of barriers and that all styles fade into the one true all-linking, all-revealing style that can be summed up in Mozart’s words: “Love, love, love, therein lies the soul of genius.”
Khatia Buniatishvili, shining pianist at the height of her abilities, came into this world in a shower of light during the summer solstice. On a human level, she is attracted more to equinoxes, being smitten by justice and seeking day and night in equal share. By lifting one’s eyes skywards one might notice her playing hide-and-seek with either Venus or Mercury. The cosmos is her garden and it is in its movement that she feels alive, astride a comet.