Czech Philharmonic • Daniil Trifonov

Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year award winner, Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov 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. “He has everything and more … tenderness and also the demonic element,” marvelled pianist Martha Argerich. In 2018, Trifonov won his first Grammy Award for the Best Instrumental Solo Album with Transcendental, a Liszt collection he recorded as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist.

In the 2020–2021 season, Beethoven’s music is especially prominent in Trifonov’s programming, including concerts with Vasily Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic. He will appear with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under Zubin Mehta. Further collaborations find Trifonov perform with the Czech Philharmonic under Semyon Bychkov or with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra. In recital, he tours his acclaimed “Decades” program and gives all-Bach recitals around the world. To round out the season, he gives duo recitals with cellist Gautier Capuçon across Europe.

Last season, Trifonov was the Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic and gave the New York premiere of his own Piano Quintet. Previous highlights include a tour with the London Symphony and Sir Simon Rattle, residencies with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2017–2018, he performed a seven-concert Carnegie Hall “Perspectives” series, crowned by his own piano concerto with Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra. He played under Riccardo Muti in the gala finale of the Chicago Symphony’s 125th celebrations and headlined the Berlin Philharmonic’s New Year’s Eve concert under Sir Simon Rattle. He toured Asia with the Czech Philharmonic and Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Europe with the London Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has given solo recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Japan’s Suntory Hall and Parisian Salle Pleyel. He made his debut at London’s BBC Proms in 2013.

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 (for the best overall competitor in any category) in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition. In 2016 he was named Gramophone’s Artist of the Year.

Last fall’s release of Destination Rachmaninov: Arrival, marked the third volume of the Deutsche Grammophon series Trifonov recorded with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, following Destination Rachmaninov: Departure, BBC Music’s 2019 Concerto Recording of the Year, and Rachmaninov: Variations, a 2015 Grammy nominee. Deutsche Grammophon also released Chopin Evocations, which pairs the composer’s works with those by the 20th-century composers he influenced.

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.

Born in the Czech Republic, Jakub Hrůša is Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, Music Director Designate of The Royal Opera, Covent Garden (Music Director from 2025), Principal Guest Conductor of the Czech Philharmonic, and Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

He is a frequent guest with the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Vienna, Berlin, Munich and New York Philharmonics; Bavarian Radio, NHK, Chicago and Boston Symphonies; Leipzig Gewandhaus, Lucerne Festival, Royal Concertgebouw, Mahler Chamber and The Cleveland Orchestras; Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. He has led opera productions for the Salzburg Festival (Káťa Kabanová with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2022), Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House, Opéra National de Paris, and Zurich Opera. He has also been a regular guest with Glyndebourne Festival and served as Music Director of Glyndebourne On Tour for three years.

His relationships with leading vocal and instrumental soloists have included collaborations in recent seasons with Daniil Trifonov, Mitsuko Uchida, Hélène Grimaud, Behzod Abduraimov, Anne Sofie Mutter, Lukáš Vondráček, Lisa Batiashvili, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Rudolf Buchbinder, Gautier Capuçon, Julia Fischer, Sol Gabetta, Hilary Hahn, Janine Jansen, Karita Mattila, Leonidas Kavakos, Lang Lang, Josef Špaček, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Klaus Florian Vogt, Yuja Wang, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Alisa Weilerstein and others.

As a recording artist, Jakub Hrůša has received numerous awards and nominations for his discography. Most recently, he received the Opus Klassik Conductor of the Year nomination and the ICMA prize for Symphonic Music for his recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for his recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, both with Bamberg Symphony. In 2021, his disc of Martinů and Bartók violin concertos with Bamberg Symphony and Frank Peter Zimmermann was nominated for BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone awards, and his recording of the Dvořák Violin Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and Augustin Hadelich was nominated for a Grammy Award. His recordings of Dvořák and Martinů Piano Concertos with Ivo Kahánek and the Bamberg Symphony, and Vanessa by Samuel Barber from Glyndebourne both won BBC Music Magazine Awards in 2020.

Jakub Hrůša studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where his teachers included Jiří Bělohlávek. He is President of the International Martinů Circle and The Dvořák Society. He was the inaugural recipient of the Sir Charles Mackerras Prize, and in 2020 was awarded both the Antonín Dvořák Prize by the Czech Republic’s Academy of Classical Music, and – together with Bamberg Symphony – the Bavarian State Prize for Music.