Czech Philharmonic • Bratislava

Daniil Trifonov

piano

Grammy Award-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov is 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 wonder to audiences and critics alike. He won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album of 2018 with Transcendental, the Liszt collection that marked his third title as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist.

In 2024/2025, Trifonov undertakes season-long artistic residencies with both the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Czech Philharmonic. A highlight of his Chicago residency is Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto with incoming music director Klaus Mäkelä, and his Czech tenure features Dvořák’s Concerto with Semyon Bychkov at season-opening concerts in Prague, Toronto, and at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Trifonov also opens the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s season with Mozart’s 25th Piano Concerto under Andris Nelsons; performs Prokofiev’s Second with the San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen; reprises Dvořák’s concerto for a European tour with Jakub Hrůša and the Bamberg Symphony; plays Ravel’s G-major Concerto with Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and Alan Gilbert; and joins Rafael Payare and the Montreal Symphony for concertos by Schumann and Beethoven on a major eight-city European tour. In recital, Trifonov appears twice more at Carnegie Hall as part of two U.S. tours, with a solo program and with violinist Leonidas Kavakos. Due for release in fall 2024, My American Story, the pianist’s new Deutsche Grammophon double album, pairs solo pieces with concertos by Gershwin and Mason Bates.

Trifonov’s existing Deutsche Grammophon discography includes the Grammy-nominated live recording of his Carnegie recital debut; Chopin Evocations; Silver Age, for which he received Opus Klassik’s Instrumentalist of the Year/Piano award; the best-selling, Grammy-nominated double album Bach: The Art of Life; and three volumes of Rachmaninov works with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, of which two received Grammy nominations and the third won BBC Music’s 2019 Concerto Recording of the Year. Named Gramophone’s 2016 Artist of the Year and Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year, Trifonov was made a “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government in 2021.

During the 2010/2011 season, Trifonov won medals at three of the music world’s most prestigious competitions: Third Prize in Warsaw’s Chopin Competition, First Prize in Tel Aviv’s Rubinstein Competition, and both First Prize and Grand Prix in Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition. He studied with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Charles Dutoit

conductor

Captivating audiences throughout the world for over six decades, Charles Dutoit has been one of today's most sought-after conductors, having performed with all the major orchestras on five continents. He received two of the most prestigious honours in the music world: in 2017, the gold medal of the "Royal Philharmonic Society" and the "Premio una Vita nella Musica 2022" from the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. Former Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, he has enjoyed an artistic collaboration with the Philadelphia Orchestra that spanned 32 years. He has regularly appeared with the orchestras of Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and has been a regular guest on the stages of London, Berlin, Paris, Munich, Hamburg, Moscow, Sydney, Tokyo and Shanghai. 

Charles Dutoit was Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for twenty-five years and held the same position from 1991 to 2011 with the Orchestre National de France. He is "Music Director Emeritus" of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo after having served as Principal Conductor and Music Director. Charles Dutoit's interest in mentoring the young generation has led to positions as Music Director of the Sapporo Pacific Music Festival and Miyazaki International Music Festival in Japan as well as the Canton International Summer Music Academy in Guangzhou, China and the Lindenbaum Festival in Seoul, South Korea. Music Director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra between 2009 and 2017, he is now "Conductor Emeritus". He has toured China 35 times, giving Chinese Premieres of such works as Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Britten's War Requiem, Strauss' Operas, Elektra and Salome. 

When still in his early 20’s, Charles Dutoit was invited by Karajan to conduct at the Vienna State Opera. He has since conducted at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Rome Opera and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In 2014, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards and received the Gold Medal from the city of Lausanne in 2016. His more than 200 recordings have garnered multiple awards and distinctions including two Grammys. A globetrotter motivated by his passion for history and archaeology, political science, art and architecture, he has traveled in all 196 nations of the world.