Alexandre Kantorow Will Make Carnegie Hall Debut This Month

2024 Gilmore Artist awardee Alexandre Kantorow makes his Carnegie Hall recital debut in Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage as part of the Keyboard Virtuoso II Series on Sunday, October 22, 2023 at 2PM ET, performing a program of works by Brahms, Bach, Liszt, and Schubert. 

Kantorow has been planning his recent recital programs around each of Brahms’ three sonatas. For his Carnegie program, he opens with Brahms’ Sonata No. 1 in C Major, Op. 1, which he pairs with the final work on the program, Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, both of which share elements of song. The two works bookend transcriptions by composer-pianists including Brahms’ arrangement of Bach’s Chaconne in D Minor from Violin Partita No. 2 for left hand, and Liszt’s transcriptions of Schubert lieder, including Der Wanderer on which the Wanderer Fantasy was based, Der Müller und der Bach, Frühlingsglaube, as well as Die Stadt and Am Meer from Schwanengesang.

Kantorow is the 2024 Gilmore Artist, an award presented on a non-competitive basis to an exceptional pianist who, regardless of age or nationality, is a performing artist and a profound musician with both charisma and breadth of musicianship; who desires a performing career as a major international concert artist and can make a real impact on music; and whose developing career can benefit from the enhancement of the Award's money and prestige. Often referred to as music’s answer to the MacArthur Foundation “genius grants,” Kantorow receives $300,000: a $50,000 cash grant to be used at his discretion and $250,000 that is typically dispersed over a four-year period for projects and activities that will enhance his musicianship and career. 

Kantorow gave his first performance as Gilmore Artist in a special event at the Dalton Center Recital Hall in Kalamazoo, Michigan on September 17, 2023 hosted by GBH Music’s Brian McCreath. 

About Alexandre Kantorow

Alexandre Kantorow, 26, has been praised by Gramophone Magazine as "the real deal, a fire-breathing virtuoso with a poetic charm and innate stylistic mastery." Born in France and of French-British heritage, he studied with Pierre-Alain Volondat, Igor Lazko, Frank Braley, and Rena Shereshevskaya. At age 16, he made his debut at La Folle Journée festival in Nantes and since then has played with many of the world’s major orchestras. In 2019, at the age of 22, he made history as the first French pianist to win the Gold Medal at the Tchaikovsky Competition as well as the Grand Prix, awarded only three times before in the competition's history. Kantorow is a laureate of the Safran Foundation and Banque Populaire, and in 2019 was named ‘Musical Revelation of the Year’ by the Professional Critics Association. In 2020, he won the Victoires de la Musique Classique in two categories: Recording of the Year and Instrumental Soloist of the Year. In 2021, he received the Trophée d’Année from Radio Classique. Kantorow records exclusively with BIS.

In addition to Kantorow's Carnegie Hall debut, he performs the same program on a recital tour of Japan with performances in Yokohama (Oct 6), Shizuoka (Oct 8), Osaka (Oct 11), and Tokyo (Oct 17); and plays recitals in Cologne (Nov 6), Paris (Nov 9), Lisbon (Nov 11), and Frankfurt (Nov 13). He also performs Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 5 with the Orchestre de Paris in Paris (Nov 15) and Vienna (Nov 17), and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Nov 22 & 23).