Sergei Nakariakov

Trumpeter Sergei Nakariakov, often seen as Maurice André’s natural successor, entered the recording studio while still in his teens and has since specialized in concertos adapted for trumpet from their original instrumentation.

Born on May 10, 1977, in Gorky—now Nizhny Novgorod—in what was then central Russia within the Soviet Union, he began piano lessons at six before an injury redirected him to the trumpet. His father, trumpeter Mikhail Nakariakov, guided his studies and frequently created transcriptions of works not written for the instrument, several of which the son later performed. Sister Vera Nakariakova trained as a pianist, and the siblings have shared chamber-music recitals. Development came swiftly, prompting descriptions of him as a child prodigy; at eleven he captured an award in an adult competition, and two years afterward he earned enthusiastic notices at Finland’s Korsholm Festival.

His first album, devoted to music by Ravel, Gershwin, Bernstein, and Glazunov, appeared on Teldec in 1992 when he was fifteen. He later obtained Israeli citizenship and has lived chiefly in Paris.

Nakariakov surveys the complete standard trumpet repertoire while also championing transcriptions and new pieces or adaptations commissioned from composers such as Peter Ruzicka, Uri Brener, Enjott Schneider, and Jörg Widmann. He has collaborated with leading conductors including Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Spivakov, Christoph Eschenbach, and Jiří Bělohlávek, and his chamber-music partners have included pianist Martha Argerich, cellist Mischa Maisky, and flutist Emmanuel Pahud. After issuing several discs on Teldec, he moved to Warner Classics in 2003 with an album of trumpet concertos by Haydn, Hummel, Tomasi, and Jolivet. The 2004 film No More Wunderkind examined his career. Warner Classics released his recital album Widmung in 2012. In 2022 he appeared among the performers on Evgueni Galperine: Theory of Becoming, issued on the ECM New Series label.