Already recognized for his deeply musical interpretations and masterful technique, Kirill Gerstein was the First Prize winner at the 2001 Arthur Rubinstein Piano Competition in Tel Aviv, was chosen to receive a 2002 Gilmore Young Artist Award, and, most recently, was selected as Carnegie Hall’s “Rising Star” for the season 2005/06.

   Kirill Gerstein was born in 1979 in Voronezh, Russia where he attended one of the country's special music schools for gifted children. He won his first competition - the International Bach Competition in Gorzuw, Poland - at the age of 11 and over the next several years, attended jazz workshops after having taught himself to play jazz by listening to his parents' extensive record collection. It was while participating at a jazz festival in Poland that a faculty member of the Berklee College of Music in Boston noticed his precocious affinity for playing jazz piano. In 1993, following a subsequent meeting in St. Petersburg with the Vibraphonist Gary Burton, Mr. Gerstein attended Berklee’s summer program and the following fall was invited to attend the college on a full scholarship. He accepted the offer and in May 1994 moved to Boston with his mother (his father was eventually allowed to join them) and at the age of 14 became the youngest college student in the school's history.

    During his years at Berklee, he continued to study the classical piano repertoire and also attended the Boston University summer program at Tanglewood in 1995 and 1996. It was following his second summer at Tanglewood that he decided that classical music would be his main focus. He moved to New York City to attend the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Solomon Mikowsky and earned both his Bachelor and Masters of Music degrees by the age of 20. Mr.Gerstein continued his studies in Madrid with the famed piano pedagogue Dmitri Bashkirov and in Budapest with Ferenc Rados. He is also one of only six pianists to have been selected to study in 2003 and 2004 at the prestigious Lake Como Piano Academy in Italy.

    Kirill Gerstein made his major orchestral debut in September 2000 with the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and David Zinman and was immediately re-engaged for the following season. Additional European orchestral appearances have included performances with the National Orchestra of Spain, Israel Philharmonic, Bamberg Symphony, Gurzenich Orchestra Cologne, Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Jerusalem Symphony and a tour of Germany with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra led by Charles Dutoit. He has appeared in recital in Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, New York, Athens, Cologne, Brussels, Salzburg, Zurich, Prague and Warsaw, while his summer festival appearances include the Verbier Festival, Ruhr Piano Festival, Lockenhaus, Luzern Festival, Gstaad, the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival and the London BBC Proms.

   In North America, Mr. Gerstein has appeared at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony and Christoph Eschenbach as well as on Ravinia’s Rising Star series; at the 2002 and 2004 Gilmore Keyboard Festivals; with the San Francisco, Detroit, Houston, Baltimore, Oregon, Utah and Quebec symphonies; and in recital in Boston, Cincinnati, Detroit, Vancouver, Kansas City, Portland and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

    Highlights of Mr. Gerstein's 2006/07 engagements include orchestral concerts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and an extensive tour throughout Germany with the Moscow Philharmonic. In the United States,
he’ll also appear with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Indianapolis Symphony, as well as in recital at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. He’ll return in recital to Vienna/Konzerthaus and Madrid, and collaborate with Stephen Isserlis, Kolja Blacher, Clemens Hagen and Tabea Zimmerman in chamber music projects throughout Europe and the USA, including at the Cologne/Philharmonie and Baden-Baden/Festspielhaus.

    His debut recital recording of works by Bach, Beethoven, Scriabin and George Gershwin arranged by Earl Wild was released in 2004 on the Oehms Classics label. In 2006, a special live CD was released to 22,000 FonoForum subscribers in Germany, in collaboration with the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, with works of Beethoven, Schubert and Rachmaninov.