Vadym Kholodenko has quickly built a reputation as one of the most musically dynamic and technically gifted performers of the new generation of pianists. Winner of the 2013 Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, Kholodenko is forging an international career throughout Europe, Asia, and North America to great critical acclaim.
Earlier awards include First Prize at the 2011 Schubert Piano Competition in Dortmund, First Prize at the 2010 Sendai Piano Competition in Japan and the Grand Prix at the Maria Callas Competition in Athens.
Following the Cliburn Competition Kholodenko was appointed the first ever “Artist in Partnership” with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. This three-year collaboration included performances of the complete Prokofiev piano concertos, which were recorded for release on Harmonia Mundi in addition to chamber music projects and international touring. Artistic partnerships form an integral part of Kholodenko’s musical drive. A committed chamber musician he has collaborated with Vadim Repin, Alena Baeva and cellist Alexander Buzlov.
In North America he has performed with the orchestras of Philadelphia, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Rochester, and San Diego, and given recitals throughout the US, including in Boston and at the Aspen Music Festival. Kholodenko has collaborated with distinguished conductors including Valery Gergiev, Leonard Slatkin, Kirill Karabits, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Yuri Bashmet, Vladimir Spivakov, and Kazuki Yamada.
In Europe, he has recently worked with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, Orquestra Sinfónica Do Porto Casa Da Música, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra, RTVE Symphony Orchestra in Madrid, Orquesta Nacional de España and has given recitals at LSO St. Lukes in London, Radio France in Paris, Liszt Academy Budapest, Lucerne, Moscow Conservatoire and, at the SWR Schwetzingnen Festspiele. Kholodenko has performed extensively in Japan, including with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and regularly returns for recital tours. In 2013 he held a residency at the Mariinsky Concert Hall where he was named Artist of the Month by Valery Gergiev, who has since requested him for concerto performances in Paris, Luxembourg and Moscow. He made his Wigmore Hall and Salle Gaveau recital debuts in 2018.
Kholodenko’s recordings for Harmonia Mundi include the Grieg Piano Concerto and Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No 2 with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra/Harth-Bedoya, which was released in August 2015 to critical acclaim and awarded “Editor’s Choice” in Gramophone, “a truly outstanding recording.” His latest release for the label — the first installment of his Prokofiev Concerto Cycle (Nos 2 & 5) – was praised by Gramophone for its “forthright, lithe and virile performances.” Future releases include the second disc of Prokofiev concertos and solo works by Scriabin.
Vadym Kholodenko was born in 1986 in Kiev, Ukraine. At the age of 13 he gave his first concerts in the US, China, Hungary and Croatia, and in 2004 he was awarded the Russian Youth National Prize “Triumph.” In 2005 he moved to Moscow to study at the Moscow State Conservatoire under the tutelage of the Honored Artist of the USSR, Professor Vera Gornostaeva.