Biography
Piano
Víkingur Ólafsson
Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has captured the public and critical imagination with profound musicianship and visionary programs. One of the most sought-after artists of today, Ólafsson’s recordings for Deutsche Grammophon have led to almost one billion streams and garnered numerous awards, including BBC Music Magazine Album of the Year and Opus Klassik Solo Recording of the Year, twice. Other notable honors include Rolf Schock Music Prize, Gramophone’s Artist of the Year, Order of the Falcon (Iceland’s order of chivalry), as well as the Icelandic Export Award, given by the president of Iceland.
In a landmark move, Ólafsson devoted his entire 2023–24 season to a world tour of a single work: J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, performing it 88 times to great critical acclaim. The 2024–25 season will see Ólafsson as artist in residence with the Tonhalle Zurich and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, as well as “artist in focus” at Vienna Musikverein. He will tour in Europe with the Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic, and Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra; perform with the Berlin Philharmonic at the BBC Proms; and return to the New York Philharmonic. In January 2025, will give the world premiere of John Adams’s After the Fall with San Francisco Symphony, a piano concerto written especially for him. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in June 2022 performing Adams’s Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?. In spring 2025, Ólafsson will perform his new piano recital, the last three sonatas of Beethoven, on multiple dates across the United States and Europe.
In a landmark move, Ólafsson devoted his entire 2023–24 season to a world tour of a single work: J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations, performing it 88 times to great critical acclaim. The 2024–25 season will see Ólafsson as artist in residence with the Tonhalle Zurich and Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, as well as “artist in focus” at Vienna Musikverein. He will tour in Europe with the Cleveland Orchestra, London Philharmonic, and Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra; perform with the Berlin Philharmonic at the BBC Proms; and return to the New York Philharmonic. In January 2025, will give the world premiere of John Adams’s After the Fall with San Francisco Symphony, a piano concerto written especially for him. He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in June 2022 performing Adams’s Must the Devil Have All the Good Tunes?. In spring 2025, Ólafsson will perform his new piano recital, the last three sonatas of Beethoven, on multiple dates across the United States and Europe.
