Born in St Petersburg, Arcadi Volodos initially studied singing and conducting at the conservatory there, before devoting himself entirely to piano studies. He continued his pianistic training at the Moscow Conservatory with Galina Egiazarova, as well as in Madrid and Paris.
Since making his New York debut in 1996, Arcadi Volodos has worked with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin, Israel, New York and Munich Philharmonic Orchestras, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. He has performed under conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Paavo Järvi, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.
Solo recitals play a central role in his career. His repertory includes the major works by Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Skryabin, Prokofiev and Ravel, alongside less widely performed pieces by composers such as Federico Mompou, Ernesto Lecuona and Manuel de Falla. He is a regular guest at the most prestigious concert halls and at the most famous festivals worldwide.
Highlights of 2024/25 include(d) performances at the Zurich Tonhalle, deSingel in Antwerp, Flagey in Brussels, the Sala Verdi in Milan, the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Auditorio Nacional de Música in Madrid and in Barcelona, and in Valencia, Oviedo, Monte Carlo, Thessaloniki, Martigny, Basel, at the Ludwigsburg Festival, the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Salzburg Festival.
Since the Gramophone Award-winning recording of his debut recital live from Carnegie Hall, released by Sony Classical in 1999, many of Arcadi Volodos’s recordings have won international awards. They include his interpretations of the Schubert sonatas and Rachmaninoff solo piano works, as well as live performances with the Berlin Philharmonic of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, conducted by James Levine, and Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, conducted by Seiji Ozawa. Volodos Plays Liszt, released in 2007, won numerous prizes, while his Musikverein recital from 2010 was released to international critical acclaim. His 2013 solo album Volodos Plays Mompou received a Gramophone Award and the ECHO Klassik. Volodos Plays Brahms, published in 2017, features 13 works by Brahms, including the Three Intermezzi op. 117 and the Klavierstücke op. 118, as well as a selection from the Eight Klavierstücke op. 76, and was awarded the Edison Klassiek Award, the Diapason d’Or and the Gramophone Award. Most recently, Sony Classical released his new recording, Volodos Plays Schubert, which features the Sonata in A major D. 959 and the Minuets D. 334, D. 335 and D. 600. In 2020 the album was honoured with the Edison Klassiek Award.
