RUSTEM HAYROUDINOFF

His performances have been broadcast on most major classical radio stations, and he has recorded for prestigious labels Decca and Chandos.  His 2006 recording of the Complete Etudes-Tableaux by Rachmaninoff became the Instrumental Choice of the Month with the BBC Music Magazine.

Rustem Haydroudinoff has performed to great critical acclain in Japan, his native Russia and Europe.  In the UK he has appeared in major concert venues including St John's Smith Square, the Barbican, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Wigmore Hall.  He has recently performed with the London Philharmonic, where his interpretation of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto was praised by The Independent as "full of mercurial brilliance, impassioned melody and breathtaking virtuosity".

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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 Jõao Pires. He now regularly records for CHANDOS. Rustem has recorded a CD of all Rachmaninoff's works for cello and piano with the Russian cellist Alexander Ivashkin, and another including all the Rachmaninoff Preludes, 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.

"The Wigmore Hall debut by the Russian pianist Rustem Hayroudinoff had a sense of occasion about it, not least because word of his playing had enticed a full house. …In Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, Hayroudinoff played the opening Ondine with shimmering control but also caught passion; Le Gibet had macabre, sun-baked stillness. He met the demands of Scarbo, surely Ravel's most deliberately fiendish composition."
- The Times, February 2002

"…a splendid CD of Rachmaninov's Second Piano Sonata…It's a performance that makes as constructive a case for this suicidally disposed work as you could imagine, showing a penetrating intelligence… served by a strong technique."
- The Independent, January 2002

"Hayroudinoff's relaxed yet sober account, with an appropriate feeling for Franck's wistful appeal, was utterly faultless. …He created a powerful sense of orchestration as well as formal perspective in Le Gibet; I felt I understood the whole piece as if for the first time. ...The young Russian ended on home territory, with two Etudes-tableaux and a Prelude by Rachmaninov. These were all stylish, voluptuous without too much apparent effort. His encore, Rachmaninoff's G sharp minor Prelude, was like having your tummy rubbed."
- The Independent, January 2002

"Rustem Hayroudinoff's fresh, intelligent and tremendously witty playing makes this a CD I'd give anyone for Christmas. This young Russian is clearly a deep-thinking, independent and very characterful artist and concert halls should book him, fast. But also, he has unearthed some real gems in these pieces of incidental music by Shostakovich, the vast majority of which are heard on disc here for the first time. The total effect is a breath of fresh air."
- BBC Music Magazine: The Best CDs of 2001

"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… If this disc is anything to go by, he's a pianist out of the ordinary: he plays every note as if he simply loves it. More from him, please, CHANDOS!"
- BBC Music Magazine, August 2001

"An absolutely precious disc… A first-rate performance by the pianist Rustem Hayroudinoff, brilliant technically but even more so in the psychological and often drastic transitions from one piece to another."
- Compact Disc Classics (Italy), July/August 2001

"While demonstrating the clear and beautiful tone and the typical virtuosity of young musicians from Russia, he yet stands out amongst the majority of them as someone who is not satisfied by merely displaying his virtuosity but makes it serve a grander purpose, namely, his powerful interpretation…His is an outstanding talent."
- Ongaku No Tomo (Tokyo), March 1999

"Apart from the brilliant technique his performance on this CD displays the lyricism unusual for many Russian musicians. Particularly striking are the pieces by Rachmaninoff for the sheer singing quality and the Blue Danube Waltz which is full of vitality and vigorous, bouncing rhythm."
- Musica Nova (Tokyo)

"The moment Rustem Hayroudinoff appeared on the concert platform the audience felt gripped by his powerful stage presence… Hayroudinoff's rendering of Bach's Partita revealed his daring musical imagination and unique style…Chopin's Mazurka op.17 No.4 was equally striking for the ingeniously conceived and executed interplay of tones and colours. In Prokofiev's Sonata…ferocious intensity was effectively counterbalanced by emotional restraint."
- Chopin Magazine (Tokyo), March 1999

"Liszt's B minor Sonata of slashing firepower…an unusually thoughtful Rachmaninoff Third."
- American Record Guide (New York), December 1997

"…An absorbing mastery of demanding music. One of the most rewarding aspects of his playing was his use of dynamics to create layered textures. In Schubert's Impromptu in Bb (D935) one could hear details of parts as they disclosed; and even when going hell-for-leather, Hayroudinoff could keep up that level of clarity, in the fugue from Liszt's Sonata in B minor, for example...He is a young man who thinks things through for himself and whose musical intelligence makes him stand out amongst the many who are primarily concerned with display."
- The Irish Times (Dublin), September 1996