“Sensitive and technically mature, this Russo-Israeli pianist has already been compared with the great Sviatoslav Richter.” BBC Music Magazine, ‘Tomorrow’s Greats: the pianists to watch’, August 2008
Born in 1984 in Moscow, Boris Giltburg began his piano studies with his mother at the age of five. He has lived in Tel Aviv since early childhood, where he continues his studies with Arie Vardi. He has been awarded prizes at numerous international competitions, notably at Santander, where in 2002 he won the top prize and the Sony Audience Prize for his interpretation of Bartok’s Concerto No. 3 with the London Symphony Orchestra and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
Last season Giltburg made his debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, playing Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev, and appears again at the Royal Festival Hall with the Philharmonia in January 2009. He played for the first time with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vassily Petrenko, the Bournemouth Symphony and Marin Alsop, Malmo Symphony and Vassily Sinaisky, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Orchestre National de Bordeaux, and returned to the Prague Symphony after a hugely successful debut with the orchestra on tour in Tokyo in 2005. In December 2008 he makes debut appearances with the DSO Berlin, and two weeks later with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony.
As a result of an audition with Zubin Mehta, Giltburg made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic in February 2005 and has since returned to the orchestra twice, notably in December 2005 to play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.2 with Christoph von Dohnanyi. He is a regular guest of the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Chamber, with whom, as a teenager, he toured the USA under the direction of Philippe Entremont. He has toured South America four times, to rave reviews, and made his North American orchestra debut in 2007 with the Indianapolis Symphony.
Still only 24, Giltburg has performed across Europe in major venues such as the Vienna Konzerthaus, Munich Herkulessaal, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, as well as at the Cheltenham Festival, the Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, and for major festivals and orchestras across Spain. Orchestral appearances have included the BBC Scottish Symphony, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker and Vienna Chamber.
In 2008 recital debuts have included: London Wigmore, Paris Louvre, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Zurich Tonhalle and Schwetzingen Festival, with the Lucerne Festival to come in 2009.
Boris Giltburg is represented worldwide by Intermusica.
2008/9 season biography, as of September 2008 / 396 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.