Piano Duet:
Lukas Geniusas, Andrey Gugnin

Russian-Lithuanian pianist Lukas Geniušas has firmly established himself as one of the most exciting and distinctive artists of his generation. 

Praised for his ‘brilliance and maturity’ (The Guardian) he is invited to give recitals in the most prestigious venues all over the world such as the Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Salle Gaveau, Louvre Auditorium, Frick Collection New York, Phillips Collection, Teatro Carlo Felice, Sala Verdi in Milan and the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. He is also regularly invited to festivals including La Roque d’Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins, Rheingau, the Ruhr Piano Festival, Schloss-Elmau and the Lockenhaus Music Festivals.

Lukas Geniušas performs with numerous orchestras including Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, National de Lyon Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Kremerata Baltica, Russian National Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic under the batons of conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Mikhail Pletnev, Leondard Slatkin, Charles Dutoit, Andrey Boreyko, Tugan Sokhiev, Saulius Sondeckis, Antoni Wit and Rafael Payare to name but a few. Recent highlights included Lukas’ debuts at the prestigious Gilmore Keyboard Festival and recitals at the Salle Gaveau, Auditorium de Lyon, as well as concerts with the St Gallen Symphony Orchestra, Bulgarian National Symphony Orchestra and the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra. 

The 2020/21 season began with performances in Paris with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Orchestre de Paris. Lukas gave many performances in Russia, notably at the Moscow, St Petersburg and Novosibirsk Philharmonies, the National Philharmonic Hall in Warsaw and at the Nohant Chopin Festival. Highlights of 2021/22 include performances with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanchev, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Marta Gardolinska, the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and Andris Poga, a tour with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra and Kristiina Poska, recitals at the Piano à Lyon series, the Folle journée de Nantes and for the Sociedad Filarmónica de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Later in the season, he gives concerts with the soprano Asmik Grigorian in some of Europe’s most prestigious halls including the Geneva and Frankfurt Opera houses, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg and La Scala Milan. 

Known for his innate curiosity and extensive musical interests, Lukas Geniušas explores a wide range of repertoire, from the baroque to works by contemporary composers. His repertoire spans from Beethoven Piano Concerti through to Hindemith’s Ludus Tonalis and John Adams, as well as a strong interest in Russian repertoire such as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and, of course, Prokofiev. He is an avid chamber musician and an extremely inquisitive performer and enjoys working on new works by modern composers, as well as resurrecting rarely performed repertoire. 

These aspects of his career are reflected in Lukas Geniušas’ critically acclaimed discography, which includes works by Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninov (the complete Preludes); Chopin (Etudes opus 10 and 25), and recordings of chamber music (Ravel, Stravinsky, Desyatnikov, Shostakovich and Tchaïkovsky with Aylen Pritchin and Alexander Buzlov for Melodiya. His first recording on MIRARE Prokofiev Sonatas was awarded the ‘Choc’ de Classica and the Diapason ‘Recital CD of the Year’ in 2019, whilst his second CD for the same label, dedicated to Chopin (Sonata no. 3 and a selection of Mazurkas) was released digitally in May 2020. 

Born in Moscow in 1990, Lukas Geniušas graduated from the Chopin Music College Moscow, in 2008. He is the laureate of several prestigious international competitions, notably Silver Medalist at the 2015 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and at the 2010 International Chopin competition. 

Since 2015, Lukas Geniušas has been a featured artist of "Looking at the stars" a philanthropy project based in Toronto, whose purpose is to bring classical music to institutions and organizations (prisons, hospitals and shelters) where people may not have an opportunity to experience it live in a traditional setting.

Moscow-born concert pianist Andrey Gugnin is rapidly gaining international acclaim as a passionately virtuosic performer, who possesses an “extraordinarily versatile and agile technique, which serves an often inspired musical imagination” (Gramophone). In 2020, the BBC Music Magazine Awards named Gugnin the winner of the Instrumental Award for his recording Shostakovich: 24 Preludes – Piano Sonatas 1 & 2 (Hyperion). Since winning the prestigious Sydney International Piano Competition in 2016, Gugnin has gone from strength to strength in concerts and recordings which exhibit his impassioned interpretations. 

In addition to winning in Sydney, Gugnin also received prizes at this illustrious competition for Best Overall Concerto, Best 19th/20th Century Concerto, Best Violin and Piano Sonata, and Best Preliminaries for his first-round recital. His also won the Gold Medal and Audience Award at the XCI International Gina Bachauer Piano Competition in 2014, and second prize at the 2013 Beethoven International Piano Competition in Vienna.

Increasingly in demand as a concerto soloist, Gugnin has been invited to perform as a guest artist with notable orchestras worldwide, such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra, the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, West Australian Symphony Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony, and has performed under the distinguished batons of Maestro Valery Gergiev, Jaap Van Zweden, Reinbert de Leeuw, Daniel Raiskin, Stanislav Kochanovsky and Asher Fisch. He has also collaborated in a more chamber context with the Asko Schönberg ensemble, Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, Jerusalem Camerata and Camerata Salzburg and on several occasions as the duo partner of violinist Tasmin Little. 

As a recording artist, Gugnin has published a broad scope of repertoire ranging from solo piano to symphonic works. His release of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes (Piano Classics, 2018) were commended as Editor’s Choice, and distinguished Gugnin as “one to watch” (Gramophone). Other notable recordings include his duo programme with violinist Ioana Cristina Goicea (Atoll Records, 2019), an inspired selection of solo piano suites entitled Pictures (Steinway & Sons, 2016), and a collection of piano duets with Vadim Kholodenko (Delos International, 2010). Andrey has also extensively recorded for TV and radio in Russia, The Netherlands, Croatia, Austria, Australia, Switzerland and the USA. 

In addition to these recordings, Gugnin’s Shostakovich Concertos (Delos International, 2007) were selected to feature on the soundtrack of Steven Speilberg’s Oscar®-winning film Bridge of Spies. 

Gugnin’s expanding list of performance venues include Vienna’s Musikverein, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Carnegie Hall in New York, Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City, Sydney Opera House, the Great Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow, Mariinsky Concert Hall, the Louvre in Paris, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space and Asahi Hamarikyu Hall. Gugnin has also participated in a plethora of international festivals, including Verbier, Klavier Festival Ruhr, Mariinsky International Festival, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, the Ohrid Summer Festival and the Duszniki Chopin International Festival. 

In 2020, as allowed by the covid pandemic, Gugnin embarked on performing numerous solo recitals at prestigious venues in Russia, as well as showcasing a new concerto by Alexey Shor in Armenia. Gugnin joined Tasmin Little in her farewell concert at the Southbank Centre as one of her four favourite pianists to collaborate with, which was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and for which Andrey was praised for his “emphatic, mesmerising playing” (Bachtrack). He continued his collaboration with Hyperion, recording his next CD of solo works for release in 2022. 

Gugnin took his first lessons with Natalia Smirnova, who laid the foundations for study with Olga Mechetina, Valery Kastelsky, Lev Naumov, Stanislav Ioudenitch, William Naboré and Vera Gornostayeva.