Getting to Know Alexander Malofeev

We are very excited about our upcoming guest Alexander Malofeev, playing here on Sunday. Malofeev (mallo-FAY-ev) will be visiting Kalamazoo after dates in Amsterdam and Paris, and before several U.S. dates and then a return overseas to play in Seoul, Munich, Venice, and Luxembourg, among others.

The young artist will turn just 21 this month, and he has been performing to wide acclaim since winning the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians at age 13. This year, he played debuts with the Ravinia Festival north of Chicago (with seven encores!) in July, and at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in August, under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas, where he won praise from both The New York Times – “Malofeev is already a special pianist” – and the Boston Globe: “He brought down the house.”  

In January, after playing Rachmaninov’s ‘Piano Concerto No. 2’ with the U.K.’s Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, a reviewer said the following: “In years to come, the audience will remember this night as the first time they saw a young man at the beginning of an extraordinary professional future.”  

Executive and Artistic Director of The Gilmore Pierre van der Westhuizen remembers when he first heard Malofeev.
“In 2019, at the China International Music competition in Beijing, he captured second prize – Tony Siqi Yun having won first – and I was completely captivated by his stage presence and boundless energy, as well as a really powerful imagination. He started making waves before then, and a few years ago a colleague sent me a remarkable video clip of him playing at 14.

“After his prize-winning performance in China, he was signed by Pat Winter at Opus 3 artists, who called me right away. I take her recommendations very seriously, as she represents people like Daniil Trifonov, Jonathan Biss, and Sergei Babayan, so I was delighted to invite him to the 2022 Rising Stars Series.”

Buy an in-person or livestream ticket today for his concert on Sunday, Octoberber 9, 2022 at 4 PM ET.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Alexander Malofeev was born in Moscow in October 2001. He graduated from the Gnessin Moscow Special School of Music in the class of Elena Berezkina. In 2019, he entered the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, and studied under Professor Sergei Dorensky (2019-2020). Since 2020, Alexander has been studying with Professor Pavel Nersessian.

Malofeev has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestra of the National Academy of Santa Cecilia, the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille, and the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra. 

In 2020, the Sony Classical Label included Malofeev’s recording with the Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto #1 on “Tchaikovsky 2020,” a box-set honoring the composer’s 180th birthday. In 2019, he was guest soloist in a gala celebration in St. Petersburg of the 175th anniversary of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev. In 2017, he became the first Young Yamaha Artist. Malofeev’s recent and upcoming performances include dates in Europe, Asia, and the U.S.