Konstantin Shamray
Konstantin Shamray is a Russian pianist.
Shamray was born in Novosibirsk and began musical-schooling at the age of six in the Kemerovo Music School with Natalia Knobloch. From 1996 he continued his studies in Moscow at the Gnessin Special School of Music, later at the Russian Gnessin Academy of Music with Tatiana Zelikman and Vladimir Tropp, and then at Musikhochschule Freiburg with Tibor Szasz. He has been the recipient of several Foundation Awards.
Konstantin came into the music scene in August 2008 as Winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition. He captured people’s attention as the first in the history of the competition to take out both First and Peoples’ Choice Prize along with six other special prizes. Immediately after this event, he undertook a successful tour of 27 concerts in all states of Australia and a year later performed 14 concerts with the Australian String Quartet throughout Australia.
Since then he has performed in many concert halls in Moscow and in many other cities in Russia as well as in Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgrade, Austria, China. His solo recitals have varied programs and he has appeared as a soloist with international orchestras including the Prague, Belgrade and Moscow Philharmonic Orchestras, Russian National Philharmonic, Maryinsky Theatre orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, Moscow Virtuosi and the Sydney Symphony. Konstantin has performed with distinguished conductors including Vladimir Spivakov, Tugan Sokhiev, Dmitry Liss, Nicholas Milton, Lawrence Foster, Alexander Vedernikov, Jonas Alber, Kirill Karabits, Kirill Petrenko.
The young pianist has performed at such festivals as Ruhr Klavier Festival, the Bochum Festival and Kissinger Sommer in Germany, White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, receiving critical acclaim. In October 2011 the pianist won the First prize at the piano competition Kissinger Klavierolymp and in 2013 the Luitpoldpreis of the festival Kissinger Sommer in Bad Kissingen, Germany.
In 2012 Naxos has released Konstantin’s recording of the last set of 18 piano pieces by Tchaikovsky and ABC Classics has produced a new cd with works by Scriabin, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev.
