The New York Times“Few artists have burst onto the classical music scene in recent years with the incandescence of the pianist Daniil Trifonov.”
Financial Times“Trifonov’s recital was breathtaking. [Martha. Argerich last year told the FT she had never before heard a touch like his, and all I can do is concur: it’s not just a matter of precision and weighting, it’s a unique amalgam of fastidious tenderness and seemingly unfettered wildness.
The Guardian“He is, no other word, a phenomenon. Like Rachmaninov, he is both a dazzling pianist and a composer. ”
The Los Angeles Times“Daniil Trifonov is an astonishing pianist.”
New York Times“A slender man with an exuberant stage presence, Mr. Trifonov is certainly a virtuoso with a demonstrably prizewinning technique … [He] demonstrated an elegant touch and witty grace in more lighthearted moments and poetic insight in more introspective passages.”
Chicago Tribune“With his stupendous technique and fingers like coiled springs, he tore through the propulsive runs and fiendish hand-crossings with razor-sharp clarity, dexterity and strength. Yet there was not a trace of pounding, no blatant pedal-pushing, no cheap histrionics, just prime Prokofiev. Such was the pianist’s control that the moonstruck deliberation he brought to the slow movement didn’t send the music off the rails.”
The Washington Post“It’s nice when a concert feels like an event: the crowded hall, the sense of anticipation. It’s also nice when it lives up to its promise. Audience members came for Daniil Trifonov, the hipster poet of the piano, who caressed the keys until they yielded music that was like a sinuous being of its own.”
Grammy Award-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov (dan-EEL TREE-fon-ov) has made a spectacular ascent of the classical music world, as a solo artist, champion of the concerto repertoire, chamber and vocal collaborator, and composer. Combining consummate technique with rare sensitivity and depth, his performances are a perpetual source of awe. “He has everything and more, … tenderness and also the demonic element. I never heard anything like that,” marveled pianist Martha Argerich. With Transcendental, the Liszt collection that marked his third title as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, Trifonov won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album of 2018. Named Gramophone’s 2016 Artist of the Year and Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year, he was made a “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government in 2021. As The Times of London notes, he is “without question the most astounding pianist of our age.”
Trifonov’s 2025-26 season includes three performances at Carnegie Hall. He first reunites with German baritone Matthias Goerne for a performance of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, as the culmination of their North American tour of Schubert’s great song cycles that also sees them perform Schwanengesang in Québec City and Boston, and Winterreise in Toronto, Washington, DC, and Dallas. After the North American performances, Trifonov and Goerne tour the cycles to multiple German and Austrian cities, as well as to Paris in the spring. In November, Trifonov returns to Carnegie Hall in the company of Cristian Mǎcelaru and the Orchestre National de France for two great French piano concertos: Saint-Saëns’s Second and Ravel’s jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G. Finally, in December, Trifonov’s third Carnegie Hall appearance of the season is a mainstage solo recital, with the same program performed throughout the season in both the U.S. and Europe. Other season highlights for Trifonov include a short duo tour in Sweden and Austria with violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider; a reprise of Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra and Music Director Franz Welser-Möst, as well as three performances of the same work with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under the baton of Daniel Harding; and Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto with both the Cincinnati Symphony led by Mǎcelaru and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra – where Trifonov served as 2024-25 artist-in-residence – led by Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Last season, besides the Chicago residency, Trifonov also undertook a season-long residency with the Czech Philharmonic, highlighted by multiple performances – including in Carnegie Hall – of Dvořák’s Piano Concerto with Semyon Bychkov. He opened the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s season with Mozart’s 25th Piano Concerto under Andris Nelsons and returned to Leipzig at the end of the season for numerous performances in their Shostakovich Festival. Other season highlights included Prokofiev with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony; Dvořák on a European tour with Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony; Ravel with Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Alan Gilbert; and Schumann and Beethoven on tour in Europe with Rafael Payare and the Montreal Symphony. In recital, he performed solo and with violinist Leonidas Kavakos in Carnegie Hall and many other destinations, and he released the double album My American Story: North on Deutsche Grammophon in the fall, which included Mason Bates’s Piano Concerto – dedicated to Trifonov – captured live with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
In fall 2022, Trifonov headlined the season-opening galas of Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra and New York’s Carnegie Hall, where his Opening Night concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra marked the first of his four appearances at the venue in 2022-23. Other recent highlights include a multi-faceted, season-long tenure as 2019-20 Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic, featuring the New York premiere of his own Piano Quintet; a season-long Carnegie Hall “Perspectives” series; the world premiere performances of Bates’s Piano Concerto with ensembles including the co-commissioning Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony; playing Tchaikovsky’s First under Riccardo Muti in the historic gala finale of the Chicago Symphony’s 125th-anniversary celebrations; launching the New York Philharmonic’s 2018-19 season; headlining complete Rachmaninov concerto cycles at the New York Philharmonic’s Rachmaninov Festival and with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic; undertaking season-long residencies with the Berlin Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Radio France, and at Vienna’s Musikverein, where he appeared with the Vienna Philharmonic and gave the Austrian premiere of his own Piano Concerto; and headlining the Berlin Philharmonic’s famous New Year’s Eve concert under Sir Simon Rattle.
Since making solo recital debuts at Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Japan’s Suntory Hall, and Paris’s Salle Pleyel in 2012-13, Trifonov has given solo recitals at venues including the Kennedy Center in Washington DC; Boston’s Celebrity Series; London’s Barbican, Royal Festival, and Queen Elizabeth Halls; Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw (Master Piano Series); Berlin’s Philharmonie; Munich’s Herkulessaal; Bavaria’s Schloss Elmau; Zurich’s Tonhalle; the Lucerne Piano Festival; the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels; the Théâtre des Champs Élysées and Auditorium du Louvre in Paris; Barcelona’s Palau de la Música; Tokyo’s Opera City; the Seoul Arts Center; and Melbourne’s Recital Centre.
In fall of 2022, Deutsche Grammophon released a deluxe CD & Blu-Ray edition of the pianist’s best-selling 2021 album Bach: The Art of Life. Featuring Bach’s masterpiece The Art of Fugue, as completed by Trifonov himself, the recording scored the pianist his sixth Grammy nomination, while an accompanying music video was recognized with the 2022 Opus Klassik Public Award. Trifonov also received Opus Klassik’s 2021 Instrumentalist of the Year/Piano award for Silver Age, his album of Russian solo and orchestral piano music by Scriabin, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky. Released in fall 2020, this followed 2019’s Destination Rachmaninov: Arrival, for which the pianist received a 2021 Grammy nomination. Presenting the composer’s First and Third Concertos, Arrival represents the third volume of the DG series Trifonov recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Nézet-Séguin, following Destination Rachmaninov: Departure, named BBC Music’s 2019 Concerto Recording of the Year, and Rachmaninov: Variations, a 2015 Grammy nominee. DG has also issued Chopin Evocations, which pairs the composer’s works with those by the 20th-century composers he influenced, and Trifonov: The Carnegie Recital, the pianist’s first recording as an exclusive DG artist, which captured his sold-out 2013 Carnegie Hall recital debut live and secured him his first Grammy nomination.
It was during the 2010-11 season that Trifonov won medals at three of the music world’s most prestigious competitions, taking Third Prize in Warsaw’s Chopin Competition, First Prize in Tel Aviv’s Rubinstein Competition, and both First Prize and Grand Prix – an additional honor bestowed on the best overall competitor in any category – in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition. In 2013 he was awarded the prestigious Franco Abbiati Prize for Best Instrumental Soloist by Italy’s foremost music critics.
Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1991, Trifonov began his musical training at the age of five, and went on to attend Moscow’s Gnessin School of Music as a student of Tatiana Zelikman, before pursuing his piano studies with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has also studied composition, and continues to write for piano, chamber ensemble, and orchestra. When he premiered his own Piano Concerto, the Cleveland Plain Dealer marveled: “Even having seen it, one cannot quite believe it. Such is the artistry of pianist-composer Daniil Trifonov.”
AUGUST 2025
