Arcadi Volodos
Acclaimed as a “keyboard genius”, Arcadi Volodos is without a doubt one of the world’s finest and most prominent pianists. His boundless virtuosity along with his unique sense of phrasing, colour and poetry have made him an ideal “narrator” of Romantic musical tales. In his hands, a simple Baroque melody can be as fascinating as a performance of Rachmaninoff’s Third Concerto, and his visions of Schubert’s glimpses into the abyss are as striking as his flights into the mystical realms of Liszt. Born in St. Petersburg in 1972, Volodos first studied voice and conducting and did not begin serious training at the piano until 1987 at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He pursued his studies further at the Moscow Conservatory with Galina Egiazarova, then in Paris and Madrid.

Since his New York debut in 1996, Arcadi Volodos has performed throughout the world in recital with many of the most eminent orchestras and conductors, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony and New York Philharmonic, led by, among others, Myung-Whun Chung, Lorin Maazel, Valery Gergiev, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Semyon Bychkov and Riccardo Chailly. Volodos regularly appears in recitals at the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna’s Musikverein and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris as well as in all the other important music centres in Europe and Asia. Since his highly acclaimed debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2002, he has been invited to return there every year.

Engagements in the seasons 2010/11 and 2011/12 included recitals in Korea, London, Zurich, Vienna, Madrid, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Brussels, Munich, at the Ruhr Klavierfestival, the Beethovenfest Bonn, the festival in La Roque d’Antheron and the Salzburg Festival as well as concerts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Berlin Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra and Seoul Philharmonic. In January 2012 Volodos returned to Asia, after an absence of eight years, presenting recitals and concerts in Seoul and Beijing.

Highlights in the season 2012/2013 include, among others, recitals in Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Baden-Baden, Dortmund, Leipzig and Vienna as well as concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Munich Philharmonic and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras.

The beginning of the 2013/2014 season sees concerts with the Gewandhausorchester and Riccardo Chailly in Leipzig, Vienna, London and Paris, as well as recitals in major cities across Europe.

Since his now historic Carnegie Hall recital debut in 1998 Sony Classical has issued a series of acclaimed CDs featuring Arcadi Volodos’ interpretations of Schubert sonatas, Rachmaninoff solo pieces and transcriptions as well as live performances with the Berlin Philharmonic of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, under James Levine, and Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, under Seiji Ozawa. The 2007 release “Volodos plays Liszt” was named an “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone magazine (“Liszt playing of uncommon, profound insight”), singled out as a Diapason d’Or and honoured with the annual ECHO-Klassik Award. In 2010 his Musikverein recital from the previous year was released on CD and DVD to rapturous international critical acclaim.

In the last few years, Arcadi Volodos has regularly played works by the Catalonian composer Federico Mompou in his recitals and devoted now his new solo CD to this remarkable musical personality. The album “Volodos plays Mompou” was released in 2013 by Sony Classical.