Yulianna Avdeeva

Hailed by The Daily Californian as “a spectacle of pure class,” and by The Financial Times as an artist who is "able to let the music breathe," Yulianna Avdeeva gained worldwide recognition since the 2010 Chopin Competition, where she won First Prize with a “detailed way of playing” that “matched Chopin’s own” (The Telegraph). A pianist of fiery temperament and virtuosity, Avdeeva plays with power, conviction, and authority, having won over audiences all over the world.

Following a tumultuous pandemic year, Yulianna’s summer 2021 includes several European festivals: La Roque d'Antheron, Fryderyk Chopin Institute's 16th International Festival Chopin and his Europe in Warsaw, Bachwoche Ansbach, Ravel Festival Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and Settimane Musicali in Ascona. Her repertoire for which includes a Bach program (English Suite No. 2 in A Minor, Toccata in D Major, and Partita No. 2 in C Minor); Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales, Pavane, and La Valse; Chopin Barcarolle and Polonaise-Fantaisie; Rachmaninov Sonata No. 2; Szpilman's Life of the machines suite; and Weinberg Sonata No. 4.

Her 2021-22 begins with tour in Germany and Austria with Teodor Currentzis and SWR Symphonieorchester in September 2021 - including Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Konzerthaus Vienna - playing Prokofiev Concerto No. 3; a Recital Debut at the Konzerthaus Vienna, a return to Pierre-Boulez-Saal Berlin in October 2021 performing Chopin, Szpilman, Weinberg and Prokofiev, and a Recital Tour in Europe with Julia Fischer in November 2021 (including Wigmore Hall London); a tour of Spain with Robert Trevino and the Basque National Orchestra in February 2022 playing Bernstein Symphony No. 2 Age of Anxiety, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Manfred Honeck in March 2022 playing Rachmaninov Paganini Rhapsody, and Rachmaninov Concerto No. 2 with the Naples Philharmonic and Andrei Boreyko. 

During the first lockdown in March 2020 Yulianna Avdeeva started presenting weekly live streams on Facebook and YouTube playing and discussing the entire Well-Tempered Clavier Books I & II by Johann Sebastian Bach. She went live 60 times and her live streams have reached almost half a million views worldwide. 

With tours of Japan both in recitals and in concertos with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, NHK Symphony, Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin, and Bamberg Symphony, Avdeeva has built a strong profile in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2019, Avdeeva joined the BBC Scottish Symphony and Thomas Dausgaard at the BBC Proms Japan. Avdeeva’s long-standing association with the Fryderyk Chopin Institute has also won her a prominent following in Poland as a regular with the Warsaw Philharmonic and the National Polish Radio Symphony.

Among her extensive orchestral collaborators are Pittsburgh Symphony with Manfred Honeck and Sir Mark Elder, Los Angeles Philharmonic with Gustavo Dudamel, Baltimore Symphony with Marin Alsop, Montreal Symphony with Kent Nagano, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and conductor Marek Janowski, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony with Vasily Petrenko, Danish Radio Symphony with Lahav Shani, the London Philharmonic with Vladimir Jurowski, Czech Philharmonic with Manfred Honeck, Sinfonia Varsovia with Robert Trevino, SWR Symphonieorchester, Dresden Philharmonic, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Kremarata Baltica with Gidon Kremer, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre National de Lyon, Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony with Sascha Goetzel, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio – with whom she toured Spain and Italy.

In addition to being a regular guest at Chopin Festivals and the Festival International de Piano La Roque d’Anthéron, recent seasons have seen Avdeeva in recital at Wigmore Hall, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Rheingau Musik Festival, Salzburg Festival, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Boulez Saal, Lucerne Festival, Palau de la Música Catalana, and Philharmonie Essen.

A dedicated chamber musician, Avdeeva has toured regularly throughout Europe with violinists Julia Fischer and Gidon Kremer, with appearances at the Tonhalle Zurich, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, among others. 

Following her recording of Chopin concertos with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and Frans Brüggen (2013), Avdeeva has released three solo albums on Mirare, featuring works by Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, and Prokofiev (2014; 2016; 2017). Her Mieczyslaw Weinberg chamber music recordings with Gidon Kremer have been released on ECM Records (2017) as well as Deutsche Grammophon (2019), which has released a solo recording of Avdeeva’s as part of a milestone collection dedicated to the most notable winners of the Chopin Competition between the years 1927-2010.

Avdeeva began her piano studies at the age of five with Elena Ivanova at Moscow’s Gnessin Special School of Music and later studied with Scherbakov and Tropp. At the International Piano Academy Lake Como, she was taught by Naboré, Bashkirov and Fou Ts’ong. In addition to her Chopin Competition win, she is also a prize-winner at the Arthur Rubinstein Competition and the Concours de Genève.

“But the concentration she brought to the Fourth Thursday night, especially her spiritual intensity in the last movement - aided by Dudamel's drama and grandeur - revealed something special indeed. Even her encore, the Bourrée movement from Bach's English Suite No. 2, had an otherworldly finesse (...). Hers may be an even bigger transformation than Lang Lang's.”

LA Times 5/25/2019

“(I)n this Wigmore debut recital her playing was generous and warm, though the concentration was absolutely formidable.”

The Guardian 09/16/2016

“(T)his pianist has a distinctive musical personality."

Financial Times 03/30/2017

“Yulianna Avdeeva, a player with a calm, unshowy presence who creates an instant musical magic. Her Chopin first half was a sequence culminating in the hard-driven F sharp minor Polonaise, Op 44..”

Financial Times 10/13/2019