Alexandre Kantorow

Born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1997, Alexandre Kantorow hails from a family of musicians: his mother is a violinist, and his father is the violinist and conductor Jean-Jacques Kantorow. He began playing the piano at the age of five, and his teachers later included Pierre-Alain Volondat, Igor Lazko, Frank Braley, and Rena Shereshevskaya. In 2019, Kantorow became the first Frenchman to win the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, launchingmarked a meteoric international career. He has since worked with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Orchestre de Paris, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. In the process, he has developed particularly close relationships with such conductors as Iván Fischer, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Klaus Mäkelä, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Manfred Honeck, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. The 2025-26 season included performances with the Filarmonica della Scala and Riccardo Chailly, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Paavo Järvi, and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Marin Alsop, as well as his debuts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony. In the autumn of 2026, he will embark on a European tour with Sir Antonio Pappano and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Kantorow, who has a particular fondness for the music of Johannes Brahms, is also a sought-after chamber musician and has recently performed with the violinist Veronika Eberle, the violist Timothy Ridout, the cellist Sol Gabetta, the mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, and the baritone Matthias Goerne. His most recent recording, which is devoted to works by Schubert and Brahms, received Gramophone magazine’s Piano Award in 2025. He reached a global audience in 2024 with his performance of Ravel’s Jeux d’eau in the pouring rain at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. Kantorow has twice been named Best Instrumental Soloist at the Victoires de la Musique. In 2024, he received the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award.

July 2026