Yefim Bronfman

• Pianist

Biography

Yefim Bronfman: In North America he works with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in one of their infrequent Carnegie Hall visits conducted by Fabio Luisi and returns to the orchestras in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Montreal where he is a beloved regular. 

In collaboration with mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená Yefim Bronfman will make a short winter tour including New York’s Carnegie Hall and in solo recital he can be heard in Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta as well as the great halls of Paris, Berlin, and Lisbon. 

The 2011/12 US season began with the Chicago Symphony’s opening Gala conducted by Ricardo Muti followed by a residency with the Cleveland Orchestra in Miami and Cleveland focusing on the concerti and chamber music of Brahms. A recital tour in winter culminated with Carnegie Hall followed by the world premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s concerto commissioned for him by the New York Philharmonic with whom he toured the west coast in the spring. In Europe he completed a two-season project of the three Bartók concerti with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen in London, Spain, Brussels and gave recitals in Amsterdam, Vienna, Frankfurt, Milan and Lucerne. In partnership with Emmanuel Pahud he visited Spain, Turkey, Denmark and London where he returned in the spring with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas followed by a tour with the Bayerischer Rundfunk Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen. 

Mr. Bronfman works regularly with an illustrious group of conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov, Franz Welser-Möst, and David Zinman. Summer engagements have regularly taken him to the major festivals of Europe and the US.

Yefim Bronfman has also given numerous solo recitals in the leading halls of North America, Europe and the Far East, including acclaimed debuts at Carnegie Hall in 1989 and Avery Fisher Hall in 1993. In 1991 he gave a series of joint recitals with Isaac Stern in Russia, marking Mr. Bronfman’s first public performances there since his emigration to Israel at age 15. That same year he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists. In 2010 he was honored as the recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University. 

Widely praised for his solo, chamber and orchestral recordings, he was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award in 2009 for his Deutsche Grammophon recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s piano concerto with Salonen conducting and with whom he won a GRAMMY® Award in 1997 for his recording of the three Bartók Piano Concerti and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Most recently his performance of Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto with Andris Nelsons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from the 2011 Lucerne Festival is now available on DVD, with his performance of Rachmaninoff’s third concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle already available on the EuroArts label. His most recent CD releases are Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 with Mariss Jansons and the Bayerischer Rundfunk, a recital disc, ‘Perspectives’, complementing Mr. Bronfman’s designation as a Carnegie Hall ‘Perspectives’ artist for the 2007-08 season, and recordings of all the Beethoven piano concerti as well as the Triple Concerto together with violinist Gil Shaham, cellist Truls Mørk, and the Tönhalle Orchestra Zürich under David Zinman for the Arte Nova/BMG label.

Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union on 10 April 1958, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at The Juilliard School, Marlboro and the Curtis Institute, and with Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher and Rudolf Serkin.