The Philadelphia Orchestra: Yannick & Trifonov

• Daniil Trifonov, piano

The incomparable Daniil Trifonov takes the Verizon Hall stage for the world premiere of Mason Bates’s Piano Concerto. Plus, Rimsky-Korsakov's timeless Sheherazade.

Mason Bates on composing his piano concerto:

"Daniil has an unmatched tone and lyricism. Grammy-winning releases such as Transcendental showcase the marvelous colors he coaxes from the instrument. Technical pyrotechnics are in copious supply as well, but Daniil always complements virtuosity with a deeply poignant sense of phrase. If you close your eyes, you wouldn’t think you were hearing such a young man.

"I want to hear all those subtleties, and honestly new piano concerti offer precious little in the way of transparency. There’s no shortage of pieces with everyone playing all the time, the pianist hammering octaves over blizzards of orchestral figuration. I’ll have that too, but maybe not until the last movement."

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About The Philadelphia Orchestra

https://www.philorch.org/

About Daniil Trifonov, piano

Grammy Award-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov (dan-EEL TREE-fon-ov)—Musical America’s 2019 Artist of the Year—has established a reputation as 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. With Transcendental, the Liszt collection that marked his third title as an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, he won the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album of 2018. As The Times of London notes, he is “without question the most astounding pianist of our age.”

In the 2021-22 season, Trifonov released Bach: The Art of Life on Deutsche Grammophon and embarked on recital tours of the U.S. and Europe, where his program was inspired by the album. He performed Brahms’ First Piano Concerto with both the Dallas Symphony under Fabio Luisi and Philharmonia Zurich under Gianandrea Noseda, as well as playing Mozart’s Ninth “Jeunehomme” Concerto on a European tour with Antonio Pappano and Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Trifonov also performed all five of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos in various combinations with eight different orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and Toronto Symphony. Finally, he gave the world premiere performances of Mason Bates’ new Piano Concerto, composed for him during the pandemic, with ensembles including the co-commissioning Philadelphia Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony.

In recent seasons Trifonov served as Artist-in-Residence of the New York Philharmonic—a residency that included the New York premiere of his own Piano Quintet—and curated and performed a seven-concert, season-long Carnegie Hall “Perspectives” series, crowned by a performance of his own Piano Concerto. He has played solo recitals around the world since his Carnegie Hall debut in 2012-13, and his Deutsche Grammophon discography includes a live recording of his Carnegie recital debut; Chopin Evocations; Silver Age, for which he received Opus Klassik’s 2021 Instrumentalist of the Year/Piano award; and three volumes of Rachmaninoff works with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, of which one received a 2021 Grammy nomination and another won BBC Music’s 2019 Concerto Recording of the Year. In 2016 he was named Gramophone’s Artist of the Year and in 2021 he was made a “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government.

During the 2010-11 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 began his musical training at the age of five, attended Moscow’s Gnessin School of Music, and continued his piano studies with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music.