Biography

Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, in 1986 into a family of musicians, Denis Kozhukhin began his piano studies at the age of four with his mother. He attended the Balakirev School of Music where he studied under Natalia Fish. From 2000 to 2007, Mr. Kozhukhin was a pupil at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid with Dimitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez-Mehner. After his studies in Madrid, Mr. Kozhukhin was invited to study at the Piano Academy at Lake Como where he worked with Fou Ts’ong, Stanislav Yudenitch, Peter Frankl, Boris Berman, Charles Rosen, and Andreas Staier. He completed his studies with Kirill Gerstein in Stuttgart. Mr. Kozhukhin first gained international recognition after winning First Prize in the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Previous awards include First Prize at the Vendome Prize in Lisbon in 2009, and Third Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006.

In the 2016-17 season, Mr. Kozhukhin performs with orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Philadelphia Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Czech Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony, and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. As a recitalist, recent and upcoming highlights include returns to the Concertgebouw’s Master Pianists Series, Vienna Konzerthaus, Cologne Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Verbier Festival, and London’s International Piano Series, as well as solo and chamber recitals with Jörg Widmann and Emmanuel Pahud at the new Boulez Saal in Berlin. He made his debut under San Francisco Symphony auspices in a 2014 Great Performers Series concert with the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic; these current performances mark his debut with the San Francisco Symphony.

Mr. Kozhukhin became an exclusive Pentatone recording artist in 2015. His debut recording for the label, featuring piano concertos of Grieg and Tchaikovsky with the Berlin Radio Symphony and Vassily Sinaisky, was named Gramophone’s Editor’s Choice. He recently released a solo recording of works of Brahms.

Mr. Kozhukhin has appeared at many of the world’s leading festivals and concert halls including the Verbier Festival, where he won the Prix d’Honneur in 2003. Mr. Kozhukhin has collaborated in chamber music with Leonidas Kavakos, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Janine Jansen, Vadim Repin, Julian Rachlin, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Pavel Haas Quartet, Radovan Vlatkovic, Jörg Widmann, Emmanuel Pahud, and Alisa Weilerstein.

(April 2017)