Dear friends,

It’s been a remarkably busy few months with tours in the US and Europe and so many special moments to share, but I’d like to highlight one recent piece of news: The Critics’ Circle has chosen me as the winner of their Young Pianist Award for 2020 and 2021. I’m utterly thrilled to be bestowed this prize—as the young pianist of choice for these two years—by a panel of the UK’s nearly one-hundred preeminent music critics. It’s an extraordinary honor that I am so grateful to The Critics’ Circle for. Here is the citation from the announcement:

Nicolas Namoradze may be a top-flight pianist, but he is very much more than that. He is a ceaseless hunter-out of unjustly forgotten repertoire – for example his championing of the works of York Bowen – and he is also a composer in his own right. And his neuroscientific research into how the brain processes music may alter the way musicians both practice pieces and learn them. His UK performances are as yet few and far between, but two recent ones have been exceptionally memorable. At the Wigmore Hall in 2020 he electrified his audience – and also seemed to electrify himself – with a performance of his own intricate piano studies. And at the Royal Festival Hall he gave a riveting account of Stravinsky’s Capriccio for Piano & Orchestra, as well as a performance of Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto with the LPO.

The Stravinsky performance mentioned above happened earlier this year—and was especially notable for its critical reception, with rare 5-star reviews in The Telegraph and The Guardian, which called my performance “ideally laconic and debonair, weighty yet exquisite, and exactingly precise in tone and touch.”

The summer months promise to be very exciting, with appearances and residencies at Toronto Summer Music, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Festival Radio France Occitanie Montpellier, NYC’s Chelsea Music Festival and the Beethovenfest Bonn. Please keep an eye on my website for calendar updates, and I hope to see you during my travels!

Kind regards,

Nicolas