Christian Tetzlaff, violin with Kirill Gerstein, piano

The Artists

Christian Tetzlaff is one of the most sought-after violinists and most exciting musicians on the classical music scene. Concerts with him often become an existential experience for the interpreter and audience alike, old familiar works suddenly appear in a completely new light. In addition, he frequently turns his attention to forgotten masterpieces such as Joseph Joachim’s Violin Concerto or the Violin Concerto No.22 by Giovanni Battista Viotti, a contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven. To broaden his repertoire, he also commits himself to substantial new works, such as Jörg Widmann​’s Violin Concerto, which he premiered in 2013. With devotion he cultivates an unusually extensive repertoire and performs approximately 100 concerts every year. 

In the 2023/24 season, Christian Tetzlaff appears with the world’s foremost orchestras. In Europe, he performs with Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Orchestre de chambre de Paris and Orchestre National de France, among others. He also appears on stage with the most renowned English ensembles: with Philharmonia Orchestra Tetzlaff gives performances in Grafenegg and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, and with BBC Symphony Orchestra he appears at the BBC Proms. He returns to Chamber Orchestra of Europe, undertakes two tours to Korea and Europe with London Philharmonic Orchestra, and records Thomas Adès’ Violin Concerto with BBC Philharmonic. In the US, he returns to Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. 

Christian Tetzlaff is regularly invited as Artist in Residence to present his musical views over a longer period of time, including Berliner Philharmoniker, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Dresdner Philharmoniker. In the 2021/22 season, he was given this honour at London’s Wigmore Hall and in 2022/23 he was Portrait Artist of London Symphony Orchestra. 

Over the course of his career, Christian Tetzlaff made guest appearances with all the great orchestras, including Wiender Philharmoniker and New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam and all the London orchestras. He worked with legendary Maestri such as Sergiu Celibidache, Bernard Haitink, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur and Christoph von Dohnányi. Close artistic ties have also been forged with Karina Canellakis, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Andris Nelsons, Sir Simon Rattle, Francois Xavier Roth, Robin Ticciati, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas, Barbara Hannigan, Ed Gardner, Ingo Metzmacher and Kent Nagano.

In 1994, Christian Tetzlaff founded with his sister the cellist Tanja Tetzlaff his own string quartet, and to this day chamber music is as close to his heart as his work as a soloist with or without orchestra. In recital, this season he appears with Kirill Gerstein in the USA, including dates at New York’s Carnegie Hall, in Washington and Boston. Each year he undertakes at least one tour with the Tetzlaff Quartett, with concerts this season at Berlin’s Boulez Hall, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, Vienna’s Musikverein and BOZAR Brussels. The Tetzlaff Quartett was awarded the Diapason d’or in 2015, and the trio with his sister Tanja Tetzlaff and pianist Lars Vogt was nominated for a GRAMMY award in 2016. The trio’s last recording of works by Schubert was only released after Lars Vogt’s untimely passing, and was awarded the OPUS Klassik for best chamber music recording in 2023. 

Christian Tetzlaff has also received numerous prizes for his recordings, including the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and Diapason d’or in 2018 as well as the Midem Classical Award in 2017. Of special significance is his solo recording of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas, which he has recorded for the third time and was released in September 2017. The Strad praised this recording as ​“an attentive and lively answer to the beauty of Bach’s solos”. The Ondine label released the recording of the Beethoven and Sibelius violin concertos in autumn 2019, followed by Brahms and Berg in August 2022 — both with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin conducted by Robin Ticciati. 

Christian Tetzlaff plays a violin by the German violin maker Peter Greiner and teaches regularly at the Kronberg Academy. 

He lives in Berlin with his wife, the photographer Giorgia Bertazzi, and three children.

pianist Kirill Gerstein plays the piano

From Bach to Adès, pianist Kirill Gerstein’s playing is distinguished by a ferocious technique and discerning intelligence, matched with an energetic, imaginative musical presence that places him at the top of the international profession, with solo and concerto engagements taking him from Europe to the United States, East Asia and Australia. Born in the former Soviet Union, Gerstein is an American citizen based in Berlin whose heritage combines the traditions of Russian, American and Central European music-making with an insatiable curiosity. These qualities and the relationships that he has developed with orchestras, conductors, instrumentalists, singers and composers, have led him to explore a huge spectrum of repertoire both new and old.

In the coming season, Gerstein will feature as a Spotlight Artist with the London Symphony Orchestra, performing four concerti across the season at the orchestra’s Barbican Centre home and on tour, including Adès with Antonio Pappano, Rachmaninov and Ravel with Susanna Mälkki, and Gershwin with Simon Rattle. Gerstein’s flair for curation recently also found expression as Artist-in-Residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, in presenting a three-part concert series entitled ‘Busoni and His World’ at London’s Wigmore Hall, and as resident artist at the Festival Aix-en-Provence.

Elsewhere during 2023-24 season, Gerstein will return to orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Nelsons, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Chamber Orchestra of Europe with Ticciati, Orchestre national de France with Măcelaru, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Shani, Boston Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic with Adès, Munich Philharmonic with Popelka, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala with Harding, Orchestre national de Lyon with Szeps-Znaider, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecila with Kavakos and with Hrůša, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich with Payare, Minnesota Orchestra with Søndergård, and the radio orchestras of Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Cologne, among others.  In recital, Gerstein will reprise with Christian Tetzlaff Suite from The Tempest for violin and piano, which was written for them by Thomas Adès, for premières in New York, Washington, and Boston. Gerstein will also appear in solo recital at Carnegie Hall New York, Chamber Music Napa Valley, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Abu Dhabi Festival among others.

Presenting and commissioning new music has long been part of Gerstein’s calling and in recent years, he has premièred two new piano concertos written especially for him: the first by British composer Thomas Adès, and the second by Austrian composer Thomas Larcher. Gerstein most recently gave Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra its national premières in France, Belgium and Italy, and in 2023 performs the work with Vladimir Jurowski and the Berlin Radio Symphony at Grafenegg, the BBC Proms, and the Berlin Musikfest. The Larcher Piano Concerto will be recorded for ECM with the Bergen Philharmonic and Ed Gardner.

Kirill Gerstein’s forthcoming release on the Platoon label will pair music by Debussy with that of Armenian priest, musicologist, and composer Komitas, featuring collaborations with Thomas Adès, Ruzan Mantashyan and Katia Skanavi. Gerstein released his Rachmaninoff 150 recording in 2023 as a tribute to the mark the composer’s 150th year, featuring his performance of the Second Piano Concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko recorded live on Berlin’s infamous Waldbühne stage. His first collaboration with myrios classics was 10 years ago and, as a result of the partnership, has realised many thoughtfully curated projects including Mozart Four-Hand Piano Sonatas with his mentor of 17 years, Ferenc Rados; a compendium of Thomas Adès’s works for piano in collaboration with the composer which won a 2021 International Classical Music Award; Strauss’s Enoch Arden with the late Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire; Downfall); Busoni’s monumental Piano Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo; The Gershwin Moment with the St Louis Symphony and David Robertson, including special appearances from Storm Large and Gerstein’s former mentor Gary Burton; Liszt’s Transcendental Études, picked by The New Yorker as one of 2016’s notable recordings; and Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto in the composer’s own final version from 1879.

Earlier recordings on myrios classics include Imaginary Pictures coupling Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with Schumann’s Carnaval; two discs of sonatas for viola and piano by Brahms, Schubert, Franck, Clarke and Vieuxtemps recorded with Tabea Zimmermann; and a recital disc of works by Schumann, Liszt and Knussen. Deutsche Grammophon’s 2020 release of Gerstein’s world première performance of Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the Boston Symphony Orchestra won a 2020 Gramophone Award and was nominated for three GRAMMY Awards. He has additionally recorded Tchaikovsky with Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic as part of The Tchaikovsky Project released by Decca Classics; and Scriabin with the Oslo Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko for LAWO Classics.

Born in 1979 in Voronezh, Russia, Kirill Gerstein attended one of the country’s special music schools for gifted children and taught himself to play jazz at home by listening to his parents’ record collection. Following a chance encounter with jazz legend Gary Burton in St. Petersburg when he was 14, he was invited as the youngest student to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied jazz piano in tandem with his classical piano studies. At the age of 16, Gerstein decided to focus on classical music completing his undergraduate and graduate degrees with Solomon Mikowsky at New York’s Manhattan School of Music, followed by further studies with Dmitri Bashkirov in Madrid and Ferenc Rados in Budapest. Gerstein is the sixth recipient of the prestigious Gilmore Artist Award – enabling him to commission new works from Timo Andres, Chick Corea, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen and Brad Mehldau - First Prize winner at the 10th Arthur Rubinstein Competition and an Avery Fisher Career Grant holder. In May 2021, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Manhattan School of Music.

The Program

Details coming soon!

Learn More...

Read about the Thaler family, the concert series they established, and see a list of past artists.