Nikolai Lugansky

The Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky, who was born in 1972 in Moscow, studied at the Central Music Academy and later at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in his native city. Among his teachers were Tatiana Kestner, Tatiana Nikolaieva, and Sergei Dorensky. When he was 16 he won the silver medal at the Bach Competition in Leipzig, and two years later he took second prize at the Rachmaninoff Competition in Moscow. His international career began following his victory at the celebrated Tchaikovsky Competition in 1994. Since then Lugansky has worked with such conductors as Riccardo Chailly, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Valery Gergiev, Kurt Masur, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and Yuri Temirkanov. In the 2014-15 season he performed as a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. He additionally toured with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and Charles Dutoit, as well as with the Russian National Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev. Lugansky concertizes regularly at the BBC Proms, La Roque d’Anthéron, and the Verbier and Edinburgh festivals. He plays chamber music with the violinist Vadim Repin and the cellist Mischa Maisky. Lugansky’s recording of the Rachmaninoff piano concertos won the ECHO Klassik, the German Record Critics’ Prize, and the Choc du Monde de la Musique; he also garnered a second ECHO as well as the Diapason d’Or in 2013 for his recording of the Rachmaninoff sonatas. Nikolai Lugansky is the director of the Rachmaninoff Festival in Tambov and has performed several times at Rachmaninoff’s former estate, which is now the Museum Ivanovka, whose sponsor he is. In 2013 he was named a People’s Artist of Russia.

August 2015