Denis Kozhukhin

“[Kozhukhin’s] dazzling performance … must have lifted Orchestra Hall a few feet off its foundation. It was hard, in fact, to imagine any pianist seizing this formidably difficult concerto in a mightier grip than this firebrand… Even in a day when keyboard virtuosos are thick on the ground, Kozhukhin is special.”
— Chicago Tribune

Winner of the First Prize in the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, Belgian pianist Denis Kozhukhin has established himself as one of the greatest pianists of his generation.

He has appeared with many of the leading international orchestras, such as the Chicago, London and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, Israel, London and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestras, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Staatskapelle Berlin, Philadelphia Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra. He is also frequently invited to perform at prominent festivals including Verbier, Gstaad, Grafenegg, Dresden, Intonations, Tsinandali, Klavier Ruhr, Lanaudière and Jerusalem, as well as the BBC Proms.

Recent seasons have featured collaborations with a number of European orchestras, including a return to the BBC Proms with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, debuts with the Danish National, Gulbenkian and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras, a tour with the HR-Sinfonieorchester, a residency with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra performing Rachmaninov’s four piano concertos, and concerts with the Oslo and Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestras, the NDR Radiophilharmonie (Hannover) and WDR Sinfonieorchester (Cologne). He has also appeared in recital at Chicago Symphony Hall, Boulez Saal, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Berlin Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Zurich Tonhalle and Bozar.

As a Pentatone artist he has released several albums, including César Franck’s Symphonic Variations with the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra under Gustavo Gimeno, Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words paired with Grieg’s Lyric Pieces (nominated for an Opus Klassik Award), and recordings of Haydn, Brahms and Prokofiev, as well as concertos by Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Ravel and Gershwin.

Kozhukhin studied at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid with Dmitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez-Mehner, and later completed his studies at the Piano Academy at Lake Como, where he received guidance from Fou Ts’ong, Stanislav Ioudenitch, Peter Frankl, Boris Berman, Charles Rosen and Andreas Staier, as well as from Kirill Gerstein in Stuttgart.