ALEXANDER KORSANTIA
Dubbed “a major artist” by the Miami Herald and a “quiet maverick” by the Daily Telegraph, pianist Alexander Korsantia has been praised for the “clarity of his technique, richly varied tone and dynamic phrasing” (Baltimore Sun), and a “piano technique where difficulties simply do not exist” (Calgary Sun). The Boston Globe found his interpretation of his signature piece, Pictures at an Exhibition, to be “a performance that could annihilate all others one has heard.” And the Birmingham Post wrote: “his intensely responsive reading was shot through with a vein of constant fantasy, whether musing or mercurial.” Ever since winning Gold Medal at the Artur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition and the First Prize at the Sidney International Piano Competition, Korsantia’s career has taken him to many of the world’s major concert halls, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Gianandrea Noseda, Valery Gergiev, and Paavo Järvi, with such orchestras as the Chicago Symphony, Kirov Orchestra, RAI Orchestra in Turin, The City of Birmingham Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, and Israel Philharmonic.
In the current and coming seasons Mr. Korsantia performs Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Boston Philharmonic, Akron Symphony and Xiamen Philharmonic, Rachmaninoff’s Third with Israel Symphony, and Jerusalem Symphony, Prokofiev’s Second with Stuttgart Philharmoniker and Telavi Festival in Georgia, Beethoven’s Fourth with Israel Philharmonic, Chopin Second with Jerusalem Symphony, Israel Chamber Orchestra and Ingolstadt Chamber Orchestra. With The Far Cry chamber group he performed Galina Ustvolskaya’s Piano Concerto in Boston. In addition, he plays recitals at the Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, National Concert Hall in Taipei, the Walnut Hill School, Greenfield Village (Michigan), Blaibach, Germany, Lodz (Poland), Jordan Hall in Boston, Cincinnati Conservatory, Shanghai Concert Hall, Gulangyu Concert Hall, Chengdu Conservatory Hall as well as extensive recital tours in Israel and Georgia.
Mr. Korsantia’s past engagements include appearances with the Huntsville, Pacific, Louisville, Bogota, San Juan, Jerusalem, Oregon, Vancouver, Omaha, New Orleans, Elgin, Mannheim, Tokyo, Louisiana, Oslo, Malaga and Israel symphony orchestras; Georgian Sinfonieta; Ingolstadt and Israel chamber orchestras; Jerusalem Camerata; Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; Polish Radio Orchestra; and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional in Mexico City, among others. He has been heard in the Piano Jacobins concert series in Toulouse; in Warsaw, Boston, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Vancouver, Calgary, San Francisco, Lodz; with the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg; at the Tanglewood, Newport, Stresa, Gilmore, and Verbier festivals and music series, performing solo recitals and collaborating with musicians such as Vadim Repin, Miriam Fried, Kim Kashkashian, Sergei Nakariakov and the Stradivari Quartet among others. Bel Air Music and Piano Classics are among the recording labels Mr. Korsantia has worked with. The most recent release is a collection of Beethoven (Eroica Variations), Rachmaninoff (Chopin Variations), and Copland (Piano Variations) on Piano Classics and Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto with Stuttgart Philharmonic Daniel Ettinger conducting on Henssler label. His solo piano transcription of Ravel’s La valse has been published by Sikorski Musikverlage in 2018 and solo piano transcription of The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky with the Bass Drum is scheduled to come out soon.
Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Alexander Korsantia began his musical studies at an early age moving with his family to the United States in 1991. In 1999, he was awarded one of the most prestigious national awards, the Order of Honor, bestowed on him by then-President Eduard Shevardnadze. He is a recipient of the Golden Wing award (2015) and Georgia’s National State Prize (1997). Korsantia resides in Boston where he is a Professor of Piano on the faculty of the New England Conservatory. Mr. Korsantia is the artistic adviser of the annual music festival “From Easter to Ascension” in Georgia.
