"More convincing than any other interpreter…he faces inevitable comparison with the very greatest, Sviatoslav Richter, turning in an equally valid reading [of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition ]" BBC Music Magazine, June 2006, EMI Debut disc.
"…calm, assured attention to the music at hand. The results are very special. Giltburg plays like a young Richter". - American Record Guide, June 2007, live recital DVD from Miami Festival, (Bach, Schubert, Liszt, Scriabin).
Born in 1984 in Moscow, he began his piano studies with his mother at the age of five. He has lived in Tel Aviv since early childhood, where he continues his studies with Arie Vardi. He has been awarded prizes at numerous international competitions, notably at Santander, where in 2002 he won the top prize and the Sony Audience Prize for his interpretation of Bartok's Concerto No. 3 with the London Symphony Orchestra and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.
This season Giltburg made his debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, playing Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No.2 under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev. He also makes concerto appearances with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Vassily Petrenko, the Bournemouth Symphony and Marin Alsop, Malmo Symphony and Vassily Sinaisky, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Orchestre National de Bordeaux, and returns to the Prague Symphony after a hugely successful debut with the orchestra on tour in Tokyo in 2005. In December 2008 he appears for the first time with the DSO Berlin, and two weeks later with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony.
For the last three years he has been a guest of the Cheltenham Festival, culminating in a residency, and this Summer also returned to New York and to the Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse for recital appeararances. In 2008 he plays recitals in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre, Louvre, Zurich Tonhalle and Schwetzingen Festival, and returns to the Miami International Piano Festival for his third visit.
As a result of an audition with Zubin Mehta, Giltburg made his debut with the Israel Philharmonic in February 2005 and has since returned to the orchestra twice, notably in December 2005 to play Beethoven's Piano Concerto No.2 with Christoph von Dohnanyi. He is a regular guest of the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Chamber, with whom, as a teenager, he toured the USA under the direction of Philippe Entremont. His first appearance with a major US orchestra came last season, with the Indianapolis Symphony. He has toured South America three times, to rave reviews.
Still only 23, Giltburg has performed across Europe in major venues such as the Vienna Konzerthaus, Munich Herkulessaal, and the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and for festivals such as the Duszniki Chopin Festival and Musical Olympus St Petersburg. Orchestral appearances have included the BBC Scottish Symphony, Stuttgarter Philharmoniker and Vienna Chamber. As a result of his prize at Santander he has played many recitals across Spain, and appeared with orchestras in Madrid, Asturias, Galicia, Leon, Malaga and Murcia, besides the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lisbon).
Boris Giltburg is represented worldwide by Intermusica.
2007/8 season biography, as of March 2008 / 496 words. Not to be altered without permission. Please destroy all previous biographical material.