Hailed by critics at the Lucerne Festival as a modern Rachmaninov and the triumphant winner of the first Rachmaninov Competition in Moscow in 1983, Konstantin Scherbakov launched his international career in 1990 at the XXth Chamber Music Festival of Asolo, where he performed the complete Rachmaninov works for piano solo in four recitals, to the manifest approval of Sviatoslav Richter, who listened to his performance.
Born in the Siberian town of Barnaul, Konstantin Scherbakov made his début there at the age of eleven as soloist in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. Soon after he moved to Moscow to continue his musical education at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with the legendary teacher Lev Naumov, whose assistant he later became. After winning an array of prizes at prestigious international competitions in Montreal, Bolzano, Rome and Zurich, he has performed with all the leading orchestras of the former Soviet Union and played recitals in more than a hundred cities.
Since 1992 Konstantin Scherbakov has lived in Switzerland. In addition to recitals, orchestral performances and tours all over the world, and televised and broadcast performances throughout Europe, his concert activity has brought participation in major festivals, such as Frankfurt, Bregenz, Bodensee, Luzern, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Bad Kissingen, Schubertiade Feldkirch and Salzburg, among others. Boasting a phenomenal repertoire of some fifty concertos and a similar number of recital programs, Konstantin Scherbakov has recorded music from Bach to Richard Strauss and Scriabin and from Beethoven to Medtner and Respighi, with a current commitment to record for Marco Polo the complete piano music of Leopold Godowsky.
His acclaimed contribution to the Naxos Liszt piano music series includes critically acclaimed performances of Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s Symphonies (Naxos 8.557366), of which the Ninth Symphony was awarded the German Critics’ Prize 2005, as well as his recording of Godowsky’s Sonata in E minor for Marco Polo (8.223899), which was awarded the German Critics’ Prize in December 2001. Scherbakov’s recording of the 24 Preludes and Fugues of Shostakovich for Naxos (8.554745-46) received the Classical Award 2001 at Cannes. In August 2005 Scherbakov played the cycle in two recitals at the Salzburg Festival to a very enthusiastic critical acclaim.
Konstantin Scherbakov has been professor at the Zurich University since 1998 and is a jury member at prestigious international competitions, including the Busoni in Bolzano, ARD Munich, and Liszt in Weimar.
