About
Dubbed a “quiet maverick” (Daily Telegraph), pianist Alexander Korsantia has been praised for the “clarity of his technique, richly varied tone and dynamic phrasing” (Baltimore Sun), and a “piano technique where difficulties simply do not exist” (Calgary Sun). The Boston Globe found his interpretation of his signature piece, Pictures at an Exhibition, to be “a performance that could annihilate all others one has heard.” And the Birmingham Post wrote: “His intensely responsive reading was shot through with a vein of constant fantasy, whether musing or mercurial.”
Ever since winning the First Prize/Gold Medal at the Artur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition and the First Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition, Korsantia’s career has taken him to many of the world’s major concert halls, collaborating with renowned conductors such as Christoph Eschenbach, Gianandrea Noseda, Jansug Kakhidze, Valery Gergiev, and Paavo Järvi, with such orchestras as the Chicago Symphony, Kirov Orchestra, RAI Orchestra in Turin, The City of Birmingham Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, and Israel Philharmonic.
In recent seasons Mr. Korsantia performed Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major with the Boston Philharmonic, Akron Symphony and Xiamen Philharmonic, Rachmaninoff’s Third with Israel Symphony, Prokofiev’s Second with Stuttgart Philharmoniker and Telavi Festival in Georgia, Beethoven’s Fourth with Israel Philharmonic, Chopin’s Second with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Ingolstadt Chamber Orchestra. With The Far Cry chamber group he is going to perform Galina Ustvolskaya’s Piano Concerto in Boston and Tbilisi, Georgia. In addition, he plays recitals at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Washington D.C., the Walnut Hill School, Greenfield Village (Michigan), Blaibach, Germany, Lodz (Poland), Jordan Hall in Boston, Cincinnati Conservatory, Shanghai Concert Hall, Chengdu Conservatory Hall as well as extensive recital tour in Israel and Georgia.
Mr. Korsantia’s past engagements include appearances with the Huntsville, Pacific, Louisville, Bogota, San Juan, Jerusalem, Oregon, Vancouver, Omaha, New Orleans, Elgin, Mannheim, Tokyo, Louisiana, Oslo, Malaga and Israel symphony orchestras; Georgian Sinfonieta; Ingolstadt and Israel chamber orchestras; Jerusalem Camerata; Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; Polish Radio Orchestra; and Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional in Mexico City, among others. He has been heard in the Piano Jacobins concert series in Toulouse; in Warsaw, Boston, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Vancouver, Calgary, San Francisco, Lodz; with the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg; at the Tanglewood, Newport, Stresa, Gilmore, and Verbier festivals and music series, performing solo recitals and collaborating with musicians such as Vadim Repin, Miriam Fried, Kim Kashkashian, Sergei Nakariakov, and the Stradivari Quartet, among others. Hänssler, Bel Air Music and Piano Classics are among the recording labels Mr. Korsantia has worked with. The most recent release is a recording of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dan Ettinger (on Hänssler). Previous releases include a collection of Beethoven (Eroica Variations), Rachmaninoff (Chopin Variations), and Copland (Piano Variations).
Mr. Korsantia has served and is scheduled to serve on jury panels of major piano competitions such as Arthur Rubinstein, Cleveland International, Hilton Head, and E-Competitions. His solo piano transcription of Ravel’s La valse was published by Sikorski Musikverlage.
Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, Alexander Korsantia began his musical studies at an early age with his mother, Sventlana Korsantia, and later became a pupil of Tengiz Amiredjibi, Georgia’s foremost piano instructor. In 1992, he moved his family to the United States and joined the famed piano studio of fellow Georgian Alexander Toradze at Indiana University in South Bend. In his home country of Georgia, he served as Artistic Director of the Easter Festival for many years, an institution he continues to support as Artistic Advisor. He is the recipient of Georgia’s numerous awards including the most prestigious ones: The Order of Honor and the Roustaveli Prize. Korsantia resides in Boston where he is a Professor of Piano on the faculty of the New England Conservatory.