Kevin Kenner

American pianist Kevin Kenner, born May 19, 1963, in Coronado, California, developed an enduring connection to Chopin’s music that earned him recognition for both his concerts and his discs inside Poland. His initial training occurred locally under Polish pianist Krzysztof Brzuza, who arranged an audition for him with Warsaw instructor Ludwik Stefanski and encouraged his participation in the 1980 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, where he received a special prize as the most promising talent. Amid Poland’s political turbulence during the 1980s, Kenner returned to the United States to work with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. He subsequently traveled back to Europe to study with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover, Germany, while sustaining his deep ties to Poland. He currently maintains residences in both Krakow and London, where he serves on the faculty of the Royal College of Music.

Kenner has appeared as soloist with leading ensembles such as the Hallé Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Czech Philharmonic, Japan’s NHK Symphony, and, in the United States, orchestras from St. Paul, Rochester, Kansas City, Baltimore, San Diego, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City, among others. His chamber-music partnerships have included the Belcea Quartet and the Tokyo String Quartet. Although his discography encompasses works by Ravel, Schumann, Beethoven, and Piazzolla, his most representative recordings focus on Chopin. The first of these appeared in 2004 on Poland’s Dux label—an album containing the composer’s four Scherzos—and most of his subsequent releases have also been issued by Dux. Several of the discs feature rarely heard or seldom-performed pieces. Under contract to Warner Bros., he issued the 2018 album Late Chopin Works, which presented his own completion of the unfinished Mazurka in F minor, Op. 68, No. 4. He has additionally recorded for the in-house label of Warsaw’s Fryderyk Chopin Institute.