The pianist Kirill Gerstein, born in Russia, earned multiple prominent prizes across the United States during his partial training there. Recognized as a genuinely global performer active across numerous nations, he maintains residences in the U.S., where citizenship was granted in 2003, and in Germany, where he serves as a prominent instructor. Beyond classical repertoire, his career has featured substantial involvement with jazz.
Born to a Jewish family on October 23, 1979, in Voronezh within the former Soviet Union, Gerstein began piano studies at age three. His development reflected both classical instructors and jazz recordings from his parents’ collection. At eleven he claimed first prize in Poland’s International Bach Competition, yet jazz opened the decisive path forward: after encountering vibraphonist Gary Burton at a St. Petersburg festival, he received a scholarship invitation to Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
From Berklee he advanced to the Manhattan School of Music, training under Solomon Mikowsky and completing both bachelor’s and master’s degrees before turning twenty. Although subsequent performances and recordings have focused chiefly on classical music, he has sustained jazz interests by commissioning pieces from pianists Chick Corea and Brad Mehldau. Additional private instruction took place in Budapest, Madrid, and Italy. Once launching his concert career, he secured solo appearances with North American orchestras including the Boston Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic, alongside numerous others, and with European ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the London Philharmonic.
His first recording, the 2004 album Kirill Gerstein Plays Bach, Beethoven, Scriabin, Gershwin/Wild, appeared on the Myrios label. Festival engagements have included the Blossom Music Festival in Cleveland and the Ravinia Festival in Chicago, together with other leading North American summer events. In 2002 he received the Gilmore Young Artist Award; later he won the Gilmore Artist Award at the biannual Gilmore Festival in Kalamazoo, Michigan, an honor accompanied by a $300,000 prize. The Avery Fisher Career Grant from New York’s Lincoln Center followed in 2010.
A 2019 Myrios release presented Busoni’s Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo. His account of the Prokofiev Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 16 earned Germany’s ECHO Klassik award. In the early 2020s Gerstein joined Deutsche Grammophon for several albums in the “Rachmaninoff 150” series. Two further recordings appeared in 2024: an album of Mozart sonatas for piano four hands with Ferenc Rados, and Music in Time of War on Myrios Classics, containing works by Debussy and Komitas. He continues to reside and perform in both the U.S. and Germany, where he teaches piano at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart.
