An artist of great creativity and charisma, Mikhail Rudy enthuses audiences worldwide with his profound musicality and extraordinary virtuosity.
He was born in Russia where he studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Jacob Flier. After winning First Prize at the Marguerite Long Competition in Paris in 1975, he decided to settle in France.
It is significant that Rudy's Western debut was a performance of Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovich and Isaac Stern. Together, they created a synthesis between East and West, a concept which Rudy himself continues to sustain in his programmes and in the essence of his music making.
Mikhail Rudy now leads a high level international career, having been invited to perform with many orchestras worldwide: he made his American debut with the Cleveland Orchestra with Lorin Maazel and London debut with the London Symphony Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas, was invited to the Salzburg Easter Festival with Herbert von Karajan, and to perform at the Waldbühne with the Berlin Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons. Since then Rudy has regularly worked with these orchestras and many other prestigious orchestras around the world, including the Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, Houston, Baltimore, St Louis, Seattle, Montréal, Toronto symphonies, La Santa Cecilia, el Teatro alla Scala, Maggio Musicale Florence, RAI Turino, Zurich Tonhalle, Royal Concertgebouw, Residentie Orkest den Haag, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Hamburg NDR, Stuttgart Philharmonic, Koeln NDR, Koeln Gurzenich, Dresden Stasstkapelle, Dresden Philharmonic, Berlin Stasstkapelle, the Stockholm, Helsinki, Oslo, London philharmonic orchestras, London Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Halle Orchestra, Royal National Scottish Orchestra, NHK Tokyo, Yomiuri Symphony, the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Prague Philharmonia, Shanghai Philharmonic, National China Orchestra, and the Sao Paolo State Orchestra. He has also performed with the San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra Munich with Mariss Jansons, Alexander Vedernikov, Andris Nelsons and David Zinman, the Orchestra Santa Cecilia in Rome and at the Teatro Real Madrid with Mstislav Rostropovitch, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Walter Weller at the Musikverein Vienna, at the Grosses Festspielhaus Salzburg and Edinburgh, and with the Royal Flesmish Orchestra with Jaap van Zweden, among others.
He frequently visits his native Russia, where he is often invited to play with the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic and the principal orchestras in Moscow.
He regularly gives recitals all over the world, and more recently performs every year in Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Cité de la Musique), and in London (Kings Place, Wigmore Hall).
Moreover, thanks to his wide versatility, Rudy developed exciting and innovative projects.
In November 2010, he performed Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition with a simultaneous video projection of Kandinsky’s 1928 theatrical version of Pictures at an Exhibition. After the unanimous success at Cité de la Musique, the production now tours France and abroad.
Double Dream, for two pianos, is another project he developped with the great jazz pianist Misha Alperin which consists of partly rewritten and partly improvised compositions from the classical repertoire. It has been performed at many festivals including the Jersey Festival, the Copenhagen Jazz Festival/Tivoli, the Sydney Festival and at Kings Place, London.
In 2009, Rudy was invited to Kings Place to give several performances of Letters to Milena which featured Rudy playing solo works by Janacek with the British actor Peter Guiness reading Kafka’s letters.
Rudy also wrote and performed in 2005 a theatrical and music play based on Wladyslaw Szpilman’s book The Pianist with French actor Robin Renucci and stage director Neil Bartlett. This project was hired by the Manchester International Festival for twenty performances. It also toured the major Dutch cities in 2008 and 2009 with Dutch actor Edwin de Vries, featured in the 2009 Sydney Festival for ten performances with Mikhail Rudy’s own staging and was performed with Peter Guiness at the Kings Place, London, in February 2009.
As a recording artist for EMI, his honours are many: the Prix de l'Academie du Disque Français for Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the St Petersburg Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons, the Grand Prix du Disque for his recording of Szymanowski’s solo works, the Grand Prix Académie Charles Cros for his Scriabin cycle and the Grand Prix Liszt Budapest for his recording of Liszt’s solo works, Der Deutsche Schallplatten Kritik Prize for Shostakovich’s concerti with the LPO and Berlin Philharmonic and Mariss Jansons.
Rudy’s highly acclaimed recordings also include Rachmaninov's complete works for piano and orchestra with the St Petersburg Philharmonic/Jansons, Brahmssolo works and sonatas with Michel Portal and Vladimir Spivakov, Janaceksolo works and orchestral works with the Paris Opera Orchestra/Mackerras, and solo works by Ravel and Schubert. Other releases include a solo recording of Stravinsky'sPetrouchka (complete arrangement Stravinsky/Rudy) and original piano works and partly unpublished transcriptions by Richard Wagner. His latest CD is dedicated to Chopin: Piano Sonata No.2 and 24 Preludes.
Rudy regularly participates in television and radio programs. He featured in a BBC film on Tchaikovsky in which he played on the composer’s very own piano. For Radio-France’s France-Musique channel, he ran a series of programmes on Scriabin, Brahms, Szymanowski and Janacek.
His passion for writing lead him to publish his first book The Novel of a Pianist in 2008. A film directed by Andy Sommer entitled Mikhail Rudy, The Novel of a Pianist, was produced by France 2.
Finally, he founded the Saint Riquier Festival where he was artistic director for twenty years.
Future engagements also include a recital at Wigmore Hall in London, the Premiere of his new project Metamorphosis with the Brothers Quay produced by the Cité de la Musique in Paris, an extensive Spanish tour of The Pianist, three concerts in the subscription series of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano G. Verdi with his project Pictures at an Exhibition, a UK tour with the Polish National Radio Symphony, and concerts with the Odense Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France in Paris under the baton of Alexander Vedernikov.
2011-2012 season -
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