Sergei Dreznin

Sergei Dreznin is not just an artist – he is a creative volcano, a musical visionary, and a boundary-crosser who relentlessly seeks and finds the unexpected. As a concert pianist, award-winning composer, and inspiring teacher, he brings music to life and creates theatrical worlds that captivate audiences. He fascinates, surprises, and challenges – always with the goal of delivering profound emotional experiences.

Born in 1955, Sergei Dreznin comes from a Jewish family in Moscow. His father, Grigory, volunteered in 1941 to fight against the Nazis, only to be sentenced in 1948 to five years in a labor camp due to his Jewish heritage. In 1973, Sergei was denied admission to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, but 25 years later, he graduated from the very same institution with distinction in composition.

Since 1987, Sergei has lived in Vienna, New York, Paris, and Berlin.
“The dream of Leonard Bernstein for an opera in the form of a musical was realized by Sergei Dreznin, a Soviet composer,” wrote Der Standard following the premiere of Sergei Dreznin’s Ophelia – Opera in Blue at Vienna’s Roter Engel in 1988. Since then, Sergei has brought over 20 original musical theater projects to the stage in cities such as New York, Vienna, Paris, Moscow, and Madrid. These include the musical epic Catherine the Great, 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman based on Stefan Zweig, the biting satire 1000 Suns, or Dr. Jöckel in Power, and most recently, The Man Who Laughs. In collaboration with George Tabori in Vienna, he worked on R+J Musical and Hamlet for the Wiener Festwochen in 1990.

His Chansons und Satiren aus Theresienstadt at the Rabenhof Theater, with Alexander Waechter and Tania Golden, brought the legendary cabaret from the Theresienstadt concentration camp back to life and toured major German-speaking stages. French, English, and Russian versions followed.

As a concert pianist, Sergei brought fresh wind to the often rigid world of piano interpretation. He has been a welcome guest at festivals such as Julian Rachlin and Friends, Annecy Classic, and the Sviatoslav Richter Festival in Tarusa. Following in Franz Liszt’s footsteps, he has created numerous transcriptions, transforming Liszt’s works into virtuoso violin concertos, which were performed by Julian Rachlin at the Herbstgold Festival at Schloss Esterházy.

In 1997, Sergei performed at the Salzburg Festival as a pianist, joining Daphne Wagner and Richard Strauss in a dramatic reading of the correspondence between their legendary ancestors, Cosima Wagner and composer Richard Strauss.