Since winning First Prize at the 2001 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition and receiving the Gilmore Young Artist Award in 2002, Russian pianist Kirill Gerstein has been travelling to the major international music centers with a suitcase full of concertos and rave reviews for his blazing technique and probing interpretations.  

Last month Gerstein made his Los Angeles Philharmonic debut with conductor Hans Graf in Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2.  Then he was off to Germany to play Liszt's first concerto with Leonard Slatkin and the Royal Philharmonic and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the SWR Symphony Orchestra, followed by a pair of chamber music concerts in Vienna and Salzburg.  Earlier this month, Gerstein performed Ravel's Concerto in G major with Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, and he gave a BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert at London's Wigmore Hall with cellist Stephen Isserlis.  He ends the month in Tel Aviv playing Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Israel Chamber Orchestra.

"Kirill Gerstein may not be a household name (although he has now played with many of the world's leading orchestras) but on the evidence of this demanding recital he certainly deserves to be," wrote Douglas Cooksey about the Russian pianist's March recital at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. "He is the antithesis of the young klaviertiger and - although prodigiously technically endowed - is a player of patrician finesse and the most fastidious intelligence."

For more information, visit KirillGerstein.com or the CM Artists web site.  

When Stefan Jackiw graduated from Harvard two years ago, Boston critic Richard Dyer predicted in a profile of the American violinist in Harvard Magazine: "Jackiw appears headed toward the most prominent performing career of any Harvard string virtuoso since Yo-Yo Ma."  Jackiw's first appearance in London - playing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra back in 2000 - made the front page of London's Times. The reviewer compared the 14-year-old-violinist to the legendary violin prodigy Yehudi Menuhin.  

Now 24, Jackiw has indeed become one of the most significant artists of his generation with major orchestral, recital and chamber music dates.  In the U.S. he has performed with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, among many others. Upcoming highlights this season include his Philadelphia Orchestra and Pittsburgh Symphony debuts and a U.S. tour with Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra.  

Jackiw boasts an impressive gene pool. His parents are physicists at MIT and Boston University and his late grandfather (on his mother's side) is regarded as the Robert Frost of Korea.  As a member of Ensemble Ditto, an ensemble of Korean heritage, Jackiw played chamber music for more than 60,000 Koreans last summer, and is currently on a 10-city tour.  Founded in 2007, the all-male ensemble has become a sensation in Korea.  "Blessed with both good looks and genuine talent," as described recently by the Korea Herald, Ensemble Ditto is credited with attracting younger audiences to classical music.  The group's name is a play on the word "divertimento".

For more information, visit Stefan Jackiw's page on the Opus3 web site.