Capable of great refinement and sensitivity and “crystalline beauty” (The Financial Times) in Mozart and Chopin, and breathtaking virtuosity in Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, Nikolai Lugansky is a pianist of extraordinary depth and versatility.
Concerto highlights for the 2014/15 season and beyond include returns to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Orchestre de Paris. Lugansky also undertakes tours with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Charles Dutoit) and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (Vasily Petrenko), Russian National Orchestra (Mikhail Pletnev) and St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Yuri Temirkanov).
Upcoming recital and chamber music performances include the Alte Oper Frankfurt, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Konzerthaus Berlin, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and the Great Hall of the St Petersburg Philharmonia. His chamber music collaborators include Mischa Maisky, Vadim Repin and Alexander Kniazev. Lugansky regularly appears at some of the world’s most distinguished festivals, including the BBC Proms, La Roque d’Anthéron, and the Verbier, Rheingau and Edinburgh International festivals.
An award winning recording artist, Nikolai Lugansky records exclusively for the Naïve-Ambroisie label. His recital CD featuring Rachmaninov’s Piano Sonatas won the Diapason d’Or and an ECHO Klassik Award and his recording of concertos by Grieg and Prokofiev with Kent Nagano and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin was a Gramophone Editor’s Choice. His earlier recordings have also won a number of awards, including a Diapason d’Or, BBC Music Magazine Award and ECHO Klassik prize. Lugansky’s most recent disc, featuring the two Chopin Piano Concertos, was released in summer 2014.
Lugansky is Artistic Director of the Tambov Rachmaninov Festival and is also a supporter of, and regular performer at, the Rachmaninov Estate and Museum of Ivanovka. He performed the composer’s Piano Concerto No.3 at the closing concert of the inaugural Ivanovka Rachmaninov Festival in June 2014 with the Russian National Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev.
Nikolai Lugansky studied at Moscow’s Central Music School and the Moscow Conservatoire where his teachers included Tatiana Kestner, Tatiana Nikolayeva and Sergei Dorensky. He was awarded the honour of People’s Artist of Russia in April 2013.
Harrison Parrott
