Nicolas Namoradze

Nicolas Namoradze is a visionary pianist and composer known for his innovative artistry. He came to international attention in 2018 upon winning the triennial Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada, and has since garnered international acclaim for his performances and recordings. A Musical America New Artist, BBC Music Magazine Rising Star and Gramophone One to Watch, he was bestowed the Pianist of the Year Award by the UK Critics’ Circle in 2022. His often sold-out recitals around the globe have been met with critical praise, and recent album releases have received extraordinary accolades, including the Choc de Classica, Record of the Month in Limelight, Instrumental Disc of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Editor’s Choice in Presto Classical and Critics’ Choice in International Piano, as well as a first-place debut in the UK charts for classical instrumental albums. Now an exclusive Ondine recording artist, his first album with the label will be released in 2026.

This season Namoradze gives recital tours in the UK, US and Germany, and appears in residencies at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Cleveland Institute of Music, Morningside Music Bridge, and the University of Puget Sound. He appears at venues including the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Kronberg Casals Forum, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Doha’s Al Mayassa Theatre and New York’s Kaufman Center and Steinway Hall. He returns to London following an acclaimed recital at Wigmore Hall as well as giving the UK premiere of his ground-breaking Neurorecital opening the season for Lancaster Arts, a project which has been the subject of extensive coverage in outlets such as the Financial Times, BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM and Radio Classique. Concerto engagements include Ravel’s Piano Concerto at New York’s Kaufman Center and Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.

Highlights of previous seasons include acclaimed performances of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, whose broadcast medici.tv included as one of nine all-time greatest performances by former piano competition winners in a “prizewinner to pantheon” lineup and named him among thirty-five pianists in their list of “history’s most celebrated pianists.” Recent acclaim includes five-star reviews in The Telegraph and The Guardian, which described his Royal Festival Hall performance as “ideally laconic and debonair, weighty yet exquisite, and exactingly precise in tone and touch,” while International Piano hailed his Wigmore Hall recital as “unfolding in an opalescent glow, every bar touched with beauty… exultant and never less than technically immaculate.” Additional highlights include residencies with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Verbier Festival and Dresdner Philharmonie, recitals at major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan and Boston’s Gardner Museum, and concerto performances with the London Philharmonic, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Calgary Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, RAI Symphony Orchestra and Sarasota Festival Orchestra, under conductors including Karina Canellakis, Hans Graf, Jeffrey Kahane, Ken-David Masur and Daniele Rustioni.

Highlights of his work as a composer include commissions and performances by leading artists and ensembles including Ken-David Masur, Lukas Ligeti, Tessa Lark, Metropolis Ensemble and the Momenta, Verona and Barkada Quartets, at festivals such as the Chelsea Music Festival, Honens Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Portland Piano International and the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, and several album releases on the Steinway & Sons label. He has also composed and produced a number of film soundtracks, including Le chant des étoiles, produced by the Musée Unterlinden, and Nuit d’opéra à Aix, made in association with the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. His compositions are published by the Japan-based Muse Press.

Namoradze is also involved in new directions in performance and audience engagement, informed by his background in music-related fields in the cognitive sciences. His doctoral thesis at the CUNY Graduate Center developed mathematical models for aspects of musical perception, winning the Barry Brook Award for dissertation of the year. It is now published by Springer as the book “Ligeti’s Macroharmonies” in the Computational Music Science series. Namoradze presents recital formats that reimagine the concert experience through a range of innovative projects, including lecture-recitals with a focus on deep listening, immersive multimedia performances, and interdisciplinary collaborations with scientific research.

Born in Tbilisi, Georgia and raised in Budapest, Namoradze studied in Budapest, Vienna, Florence, New York and London with mentors including Emanuel Ax, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Zoltán Kocsis, Matti Raekallio, András Schiff and Eliso Virsaladze in piano, and John Corigliano in composition. He now serves on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center and deputizes at The Juilliard School.

For further information about Nicolas’ projects, please visit his project page.

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