Yefim Bronfman © Dario Acosta
Yefim Bronfman
The pianist Yefim Bronfman was born in 1958 in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, which was then part of the Soviet Union. In 1973, he emigrated with his parents to Israel, where he studied with Arie Vardi in Tel Aviv. Bronfman then went to the USA and perfected himself by studying with famous pianists such as Rudolf Firkušný, Leon Fleisher and Rudolf Serkin. He became an American citizen in 1989. Since his debut in 1975 with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Zubin Mehta, the pianist has performed worldwide with leading orchestras and conductors and given recitals on the most prestigious concert stages.
Yefim Bronfman has an immense, wide-ranging repertoire and performs around 40 different works each concert season. The focus is on the great piano concertos and the classics of the piano literature, but Bronfman also places an artistic emphasis on the music of the 20th century, especially that of Béla Bartók and Sergei Prokofiev. He also regularly performs works by contemporary composers, often dedicated to him, such as the Piano Concerto by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Second Piano Concerto by Magnus Lindberg. Bronfman has recorded both concertos on CD. 2022/23 season's programme includes the world premiere of Elena Firsova's Piano Concerto, with Bronfman performing together with the Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam as the orchestra's current Artist in Residence under the baton of Jakob Hrůša.
An important part of Bronfman's artistic personality is performing in smaller chamber music and recital settings. He performs with partners such as the Emerson Quartet, the Juilliard String Quartet, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinists Shlomo Mintz, Pinchas Zukerman, Joshua Bell and Anne Sophie Mutter, and flutist Emmanuel Pahud, to name but a few. A special event were joint concerts with violinist Isaac Stern in Russia in 1991, which brought Stern, who was born in what is now Ukraine, back to the country for the first time since 1967 and Bronfman for the first time since his emigration. Bronfman has worked closely with Magdalena Kožená for many years. Bronfman also enjoys playing two pianos, for example in duos with Martha Argerich or Lahav Shani.
In a career spanning well over 40 years, Bronfman has made a large number of recordings, which have recently been joined by video recordings. Many of his recordings have been awarded important recording prizes, such as the coveted American Grammy, which Bronfman received for his complete recording of Béla Bartók's piano concertos. More recent recordings include Alfred Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and Strings and the Piano Concertos of Johannes Brahms with the Cleveland Orchestra. In 2021 the album Nostalgia, which Bronfman recorded together with Magdalena Kožená, was released on the Pentatone label.
As of August 2022