Biography

Award-winning Russian-born American pianist Yuliya Gorenman has rightfully been called a "pianist without fear." Now firmly established in her performing career, Gorenman first achieved international acclaim as a prizewinner of the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Belgium in 1995. Since then she has been continually invited to perform solo, chamber, and orchestral concerts throughout the United States and in Europe, and, in the process, has earned consistent praise for her artistic fire, for her fluid and unpretentious technique, and for the lyrical honesty and generosity of her playing.

Born in Odessa (Ukraine) and raised in Kazakhstan, Gorenman began studying with her late mother, Svetlana Gorenman, an outstanding musician in her own right. Gorenman continued to shape her performance style while attending the St. Petersburg Conservatory. While still a student, she performed throughout the former Soviet Union. After emigrating to the United States in 1989, she studied first at the San Francisco Conservatory and then at the Peabody Conservatory with mentors such as Nathan Schwartz and Leon Fleischer.

When Gorenman earned her laureate at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, she characteristically did so while on a precipice, as an artist between worlds, an emigre from the Soviet Union still weeks shy of her American citizenship. Schooled in two musical traditions but wholly defined by neither, Gorenman has since freely but carefully drawn on both heritages in performances of the masterworks of the twentieth century, romantic, classical, and baroque repertoire that have stirred audiences worldwide.

After leaving the former Soviet Union, Gorenman earned a steady procession of awards and honors. She performed in numerous television and radio broadcasts throughout Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Canada, and the United States. As a fellow at the Tanglewood Festival she appeared in a PBS educational video for Sony Classical with Seiji Ozawa and Wynton Marsalis. Also at Tanglewood Gorenman gave a joint concert with Billy Joel, performing his classical concert works, which she also arranged. The concert was broadcast nationally on NPR.

Gorenman has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic of Flanders, and many other orchestras and chamber music ensembles throughout the world . She has appeared at the Kennedy Center, the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, and many other venues. From 1999-2003 she performed at “L’été musical dans la vallee du Lot,” the music festival of Cahors, France. Gorenman has recorded all the Beethoven Piano Concerti and the Triple Concerto live with the Bavarian Chamber Orchestra and conductor Philip Greenberg in France and Switzerland.

Gorenman concluded the critically acclaimed The Gorenman Beethoven Project in 2011, performing the complete cycle of the 32 Beethoven Piano Sonatas at American University in Washington, DC. Called one of the best performers in Washington, DC, by Washington Life Magazine and featured in the Washingtonian, she frequently appeared at the Phillips Collection and has been presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society in recitals at the Harman Hall and the Smithsonian. Her live performances have been broadcast on NPR and WETA. In 2009 Gorenman joined the Recording Academy (Grammy). The first volume of The Gorenman Beethoven Project, Beethoven Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 2, 3 was released in 2010 on MiClaire Records. Gorenman continues to explore masterpieces of the great composers with The Gorenman Piano Project. Currently, Gorenman is professor of piano and Musician in Residence at the American University in Washington, DC.