Biography
Nicolas Namoradze is a visionary pianist and composer known for his innovative artistry. He came to international attention in 2018 upon winning the triennial Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada, and has since garnered international acclaim for his performances and recordings. A Musical America New Artist, BBC Music Magazine Rising Star and Gramophone One to Watch, he was bestowed the Pianist of the Year Award by the UK Critics’ Circle in 2022. His often sold-out recitals around the globe have been met with critical praise, and album releases have received extraordinary accolades, including the Choc de Classica, Record of the Month in Limelight, Instrumental Disc of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Editor’s Choice in Presto Classical and Critics’ Choice in International Piano, as well as a first-place debut in the UK charts for classical instrumental albums. An exclusive Ondine recording artist, his first album with the label, released in October 2026, is an all-Beethoven album featuring the Hammerklavier Sonata and his own solo piano arrangement of the Grosse Fuge.
The 2026/27 season takes him across North America, Europe and further afield with highlights including a series of recitals at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, recitals at London’s Wigmore Hall, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Padova’s Palazzo Livano and the Vancouver Annex, highly anticipated returns to Japan and Taiwan for solo recital tours including performances at Tokyo’s Triphony Hall and Taipei’s National Concert Hall, and residencies at the Banff Centre and the Sarasota, Honens and Tonebase Festivals. Orchestral highlights include a Saint-Saëns concerto recording project, with a performance at New York’s Alice Tully Hall. He presents his groundbreaking “Neurorecital” at the Cristofori and Beakerhead Festivals, a project which has garnered extensive coverage including features in the New York Times, Financial Times, BBC Music Magazine, Classic FM, and Radio Classique. The season also sees several major composition premieres, including a co-commission by Wigmore Hall and the BBC premiering at the Wigmore, a Schnabel Foundation commission appearing on a new album on the Sono Luminus label, and the compulsory commissioned work for the Tbilisi International Piano Competition, where he also serves on the jury.
Previous seasons have included acclaimed performances of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, whose broadcast medici.tv included as one of nine all-time greatest performances by former piano competition winners in a “prizewinner to pantheon” lineup and named him among thirty-five pianists in their list of “history’s most celebrated pianists.” Recent acclaim includes five-star reviews in The Telegraph and The Guardian, which described his Royal Festival Hall performance as “ideally laconic and debonair, weighty yet exquisite, and exactingly precise in tone and touch,” while International Piano hailed his Wigmore Hall recital as “unfolding in an opalescent glow, every bar touched with beauty… exultant and never less than technically immaculate.” Additional highlights include residencies with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Verbier Festival, and Dresdner Philharmonie, recitals at major venues such as Carnegie Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, and Boston’s Gardner Museum, and concerto performances with the London Philharmonic, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Calgary Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony, RAI Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, under conductors including Karina Canellakis, Hans Graf, Jeffrey Kahane, Ken-David Masur, and Daniele Rustioni.
As a composer, Namoradze has received commissions and performances from esteemed artists, ensembles, and festivals including the Chelsea Music Festival, Portland Piano International, Klavier-Festival Ruhr and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, with several album releases on the Steinway & Sons label. He has also scored several film soundtracks, such as Le chant des étoiles, and his works are published by Muse Press. Namoradze is also involved in new directions in performance and audience engagement, informed by his involvement in music-related fields in the cognitive sciences. His doctoral thesis at the CUNY Graduate Center developed mathematical models for aspects of musical perception, winning the Barry Brook Award for dissertation of the year. It is now published by Springer as the book “Ligeti’s Macroharmonies” in the Computational Music Science series. Namoradze presents recital formats that reimagine the concert experience through a range of innovative projects, including lecture-recitals, immersive multimedia performances, and interdisciplinary collaborations with scientific research.
Born in Tbilisi, Georgia and raised in Budapest, Namoradze studied in Budapest, Vienna, Florence, New York and London with mentors including Emanuel Ax, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Zoltán Kocsis, Matti Raekallio, András Schiff and Eliso Virsaladze in piano, and John Corigliano in composition. He now serves on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center and deputises at The Juilliard School.
Projects
The Neurorecital
Nicolas Namoradze’s Neurorecital reimagines the concert experience through the lens of the cognitive sciences — a performance shaped by his own research into how music is perceived. At the 2025 Verbier Festival, where he was an Artist in Residence, he presented a new iteration developed with neuroscientists, pairing live performance with real-time visualisation of his own brain activity.
Namoradze the composer
Namoradze is also an active composer, with commissions and premieres from artists and ensembles including conductor Ken-David Masur, violinist Tessa Lark, and the Momenta, Verona and Barkada Quartets, and performances at festivals including Santa Fe Chamber Music and the Klavier-Festival Ruhr. His works are published by Muse Press.
Music for film and visual art
His work extends into film and visual art. He has composed for projects with the painter Fabienne Verdier — including music connected to her monumental Le chant des étoiles at the Musée Unterlinden — and wrote Nuit d’opéra à Aix in association with the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.
Fabienne Verdier at the Musée Unterlinden ↗ (opens in a new tab)
The science of listening
His doctoral thesis at the CUNY Graduate Center, which developed mathematical models of musical perception, won the Barry Brook Award and is published by Springer as Ligeti’s Macroharmonies — the intellectual foundation of his Neurorecital.
News
Media
Press
Wigmore Hall recitala simply superb recital … a magisterial performance, an absolute masterclass in piano playing
Seen & Heard International (2025)
Budapest Festival Orchestra with Iván Fischerideally laconic and debonair, weighty yet exquisite, and exactingly precise in tone and touch
The Guardian (2024)
Montréal Bach FestivalA peerless poet… a sumptuous pianist, a sound philosopher.
La Scena Musicale (2024)
Wigmore Hall debutunfolding in an opalescent glow, every bar touched with beauty… exultant and never less than technically immaculate
International Piano (2022)
Discography
Contact
Management
Imogen Morris
Founder & Director, Morris Artists
imogen@morris-artists.com
+44 (0) 7810 800016
