Mahan Esfahani

Having roots in Iran and receiving much of his training in the United States while maintaining an active career in Britain and making his home in Prague, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani has advanced the solo harpsichord toward greater visibility in standard concert settings. A notable step came in 2011 when he became the first keyboardist to devote an entire recital to the harpsichord at the BBC Proms festival.

Esfahani entered the world in Tehran, Iran, in 1984 and spent most of his upbringing in the U.S., where his father provided early piano instruction; during adolescence he turned his attention to the harpsichord. He entered Stanford University in California to study musicology and music history with George Houle, an experience that strengthened his commitment to early music. Once he completed his degree, he moved first to Boston for lessons with Peter Watchorn and later to Prague to continue studies under Zuzana Růžičková.

From 2008 to 2010 he served as artist in residence at New College, Oxford, and during those years several prizes and fellowships gave his career decisive momentum, among them selection as a BBC New Generation Artist for 2008–2010, a Borletti-Buitoni Trust award in 2009, and repeated Gramophone magazine nominations for Classical Artist of the Year. A 2009 Musica Omnia recording of John Bull’s complete harpsichord works preceded his subsequent association with the Hyperion and OUR Recordings labels.

Esfahani has performed in leading venues across the U.S., Europe, and East Asia, among them Lincoln Center in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, and Oji Hall in Tokyo, and he has appeared as concerto soloist with the BBC Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, and the Melbourne Symphony. Between 2016 and 2019 he held the role of artistic partner with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Contemporary scores have regularly appeared on his programs, including a 2016 Cologne performance of Steve Reich’s Piano Phase on harpsichord that drew vocal disapproval from listeners.

He issued a Deutsche Grammophon account of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, in 2016. The album Musique? followed in 2020, and that April he became the first solo harpsichordist to perform on NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concert” series in the U.S. Since 2015 he has taught as professor of music at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama and frequently serves as commentator on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4. During the COVID-19 pandemic he recorded several Hyperion albums of Bach’s music, among them the 2023 release Bach: Notebooks for Anna Magdalena. Also in 2023 he issued an album of harpsichord works by Viktor Kalabis, Hans Krása, and Bohuslav Martinů.