Biography

Russian pianist Rustem Hayroudinoff has been hailed as a musician of tremendous intelligence and insight across the globe from America to the Far East. Of his recent CD of Shostakovich’s Theatre Music, released by CHANDOS in April 2001, BBC Music Magazine stated: ‘Hayroudinoff’s performances are tender and brilliant, enhancing the music’s many facets with glowing tone, exquisite phrasing and an unerring sense of comic timing…he’s a pianist out of the ordinary: he plays every note as if he simply loves it.’ The magazine selected the disc as a CD of the Year. The Italian magazine Compact Disc Classics likewise acclaimed it as ‘an absolutely precious disc’. At the Vianna da Motta Competition 1997, where Hayroudinoff was a top prizewinner, the great Russian pianist Lazar Berman praised him as ‘a serious artist and master, whose emergence in today’s atmosphere of pseudo-artistic and shallow music-making is specially valuable and welcome.’ In 2000, András Schiff helped to arrange a recital for him at Hurstwood Farm, Kent, a venue devoted to piano recitals of the highest quality. Recently Hayroudinoff has received much encouragement from Murray Perahia and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Hayroudinoff’s performances have been broadcast on RTE (Ireland), SBS and ABC (Australia), WFMT-FM (USA), CBC Radio 2 (Canada), Swedish Radio Corporation, NDR (Germany), Television Network of Chicago, Russian National Radio, Classic FM, LBC and BBC Radio 3, where he is a regularly featured guest in the programme “In Tune”.

His first CD of music by Schubert, Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Johann Strauss was released in Japan in 1999. The following year he was invited by Decca to contribute to a compilation illustrating Vikram Seth’s novel An Equal Music, featuring alongside Mstislav Rostropovich, András Schiff and Maria Joao Pires. He now regularly records for Chandos. Having just recorded a CD of all Rachmaninoff’s works for cello and piano with the Russian cellist Alexander Ivashkin, he is currently working on all the Rachmaninoff Preludes, which are to be recorded in October 2002.

Born in Russia, Hayroudinoff studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Lev Naumov and in London with Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music. After his London debut in 1994, of which Classical Music magazine wrote ‘Rustem Hayroudinoff created a sensation…’, he went on to perform to great critical acclaim in the United States, Germany, the Republic of Ireland and Eastern Europe. In the UK Hayroudinoff has appeared in major concert venues including St John’s Smith Square, the Barbican and the Queen Elizabeth Hall. His debut recital in the Wigmore Hall in January 2002 was sold out.  In Japan he is a frequent and popular visitor, lauded as ‘an outstanding talent’ by the prestigious Ongaku No Tomo magazine.

Recent seasons have included three tours of Japan, recitals at the Chopin-Gesellschaft Hannover Festival and Mananan International Festival in the Isle of Man, performances with the Osaka Century Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony, the Sofia Symphony and a recital in Chicago, which was televised and simultaneously broadcast live by over 300 radio stations nationwide.