Boris Giltburg

To celebrate the Beethoven anniversary in 2020 Giltburg embarked upon a unique project to record and film all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas across the year, blogging about the process as it unfolded. The cycle, released on Naxos on all the major digital platforms - and subsequently as a boxed set - combines the high production values of a studio recording with the immediacy of a live performance, resulting in a uniquely fresh and personal take on these pillars of repertoire. Giltburg’s intense focus on Beethoven extended to the stage platform, as he performed the last four sonatas throughout the 20/21 season. He is recording the complete Beethoven piano concerti with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko, performed them as a cycle on three consecutive nights with the Brussels Philharmonic at the 2020 Flagey Piano Festival, and appeared in the BBC TV series “Being Beethoven”. 

He regularly plays recitals in the world’s most prestigious halls, notably the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, London Southbank Centre, Prague Rudolfinum, Auditorium Radio France, Teatro Colon, Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre, Tokyo Toppan Hall and Wiener Konzerthaus.  In 2021-2023 he plays the complete solo works of Ravel at Wigmore Hall and in Brussels at BOZAR and Flagey, also performing part of the cycle at the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw. In Autumn 2021 he curates the chamber music series of the Dvorak Prague Festival.

Collaborations with major conductor and orchestras worldwide include the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, WDR, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Baltimore and Seattle symphonies and at the BBC Proms.  In 2021/22 he debuts with Santa Cecilia di Roma with Kirill Petrenko, and Orchestre National de France with Cristian Macelaru, also returning to the Royal Philharmonic with Vasily Petrenko, Halle Orchestra with Sir Mark Elder and Netherlands Philharmonic with Mark Wigglesworth.

Giltburg is a consummate recording artist. In 2015 he began a fruitful collaboration with Naxos Records, releasing a series of critically praised recordings of works by Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich. His earlier album of Prokofiev’s War Sonatas was nominated for a Classical Brits Critics’ Award, and more recently he has won an Opus Klassik for Best Soloist Recording (Rachmaninov concerti and Etudes Tableaux); a Diapason d’Or (Shostakovich concerti and his own arrangement of Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet), and a Gramophone Award for the Dvorak Piano Quintet on Supraphon with the Pavel Haas Quartet, with whom he has a long-standing collaboration.

Giltburg feels a strong need to engage audiences beyond the concert hall. His blog “Classical music for all” is aimed at a non-specialist audience, and he complements it with articles in publications such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Guardian, Times and Fono Forum. During the lockdown period in spring 2020, Giltburg regularly streamed live performances and masterclasses from home; to this date these streams received more than 1 million views. 

2021/22 season / 603 words. Not to be altered without permission.
Boris Giltburg is represented by Intermusica.