Young French pianist wins $300k
NewsThe 2024 Gilmore Artist Award has been bestowed on the rising Frenchman Alexandre Kantorow, who is 26.
He receives $50k in cash and a further quarter of a million in career development over the next four years.
Past Gilmore winners are Igor Levit (2018), Rafał Blechacz (2014), Kirill Gerstein (2010), Ingrid Fliter (2006), Piotr Anderszewski (2002), Leif Ove Andsnes (1998), Ralf Gothóni (1994), and David Owen Norris (1991).
Kantorow’s father is the violinist and conductor Jean-Jacques Kantorow.
Well deserved. Alexandre is one of the finest players I’ve ever heard. Incredible musician and a wonderful guy!
Look at that list of winners! He’s a worthy addition.
So he wins 300k from this, and 130k from Tchaikovsky competition 2019 – 1st prize and Grand Prix.
With a famous conductor father, he is very rich indeed.
I hope he’s paying all his taxes.
Mee-owww …
He really is prodigious; technically and artistically. I’m glad he got this grant, but I’m not sure how much he needs it. He has more concerts than he can handle and they’re all sold out.
Alex, a truly well deserved honor and to join the company of such stellar previous recipients! WOW! Looks like you future just got considerably “greener” too!
Consistent with the Gilmore’s tradition of giving their award to established pianists who simply don’t need it. So, what’s the point — other than to shine glory on the Gilmore prize, rather than to bring attention to a worthy, overlooked talent who deserves a push? This award is more narcissistic than beneficent.
The Gilmore seems to favor cerebral pianists, they all bring you to a new consciousness of pieces you know or thought you knew; Kantorow plays with an artistic fluidity (with an interpretive security) that doesn’t repeat itself even if he’s playing the same piece over and over, and a maturity that reflects the stellar roster of teachers he has had. I look forward to what he will do with the war horses, the ones everyone has recorded but few have imbued with their own voice, which Kantorow certainly has.
Another past Gilmore winner, Rafal Blechacz, released a Chopin disc for Deutsche Grammophon (the two piano sonatas, the Barcarolle and the Nocturne in F# minor, Op 48) some six months ago that has gotten little notice but which is simply phenomenal. Talk about warhorses we have heard a gazillion times and then imprinting them with such virtuosity, personality, details and sheer beauty. The disc is breathtaking, jaw-dropping phenomenal. Period.
All this money to people who have already a career and don’t need it, what about 10 x 30 000$ to artists with less exposure than him?