Duo Kolesnikov Tsoy

Kolesnikov & Tsoy

Ensemble

Duo Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy is manged in the BeNeLux, by Leontien van der Vliet.

Contact:
E: leontien.vandervliet@interartists.nl
T: +31 6 5 24 68 707

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Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, partners onstage and off, began to play as a duo at the Moscow Conservatoire. They came to London in 2011, to continue their studies at the Royal College of Music.

The duo often dreamed of a stripped down and candid environment for genuine music making. They tried several spots in London and in 2019 they found the Ragged School Museum and the first Ragged Music Festival was born. Together with their music friends they have established 3 editions of the festival in London and the concept became quite popular. While the museum was closed for renovation, they brought the spirit and the concept to Muziekgebouw aan het IJ in Amsterdam in the spring 2023. Not trying to replicate they made it in a site-specific way - something that could only really happen there, at that moment.

For the Aldeburgh Festival 2023, the duo created several new duo productions for specific festival sites. Other 2023 highlights took place at Wigmore Hall and London’s Southbank and Barbican Centres – the latter in Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos with the City of Birmingham Orchestra as part of Europe’s first Classical Pride Concert. 2024 Duo dates included their Carnegie Hall debut and recitals at Konzerthaus Berlin, Rotterdam’s De Doelen, Ghent's De Bijloke and Brussels’ BOZAR. They recorded Schubert’s Fantasie as part of a digital installation at the MoMu in Antwerp.

June 2024 Harmonia Mundi will release their first album, including Schubert’s Fantasie.

The former BBC New Generation Artist, Pavel Kolesnikov has made his sixth appearance at the BBC Proms in 2023. Other highlights were his return to the Philharmonia Orchestra (with Santtu-Matias Rouvali), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Vasily Petrenko) and his debuts with Cincinnati Symphony and Netherlands Philharmonic (both with Sir Mark Elder).

Pavel is especially known for his cross-genre collaborations, including “Celestial Navigation” – a baroque to contemporary programme featuring projections by architect Sophie Hicks and text by Martin Crimp – and his realisation of Bach’s Goldberg Variations with dancer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. Summer 2023 he had a seven-concert residency at the Aldeburgh Festival and often returns to the Klavier Festival Ruhr and to Wigmore Hall where he was artist-in-residence during 2020/21. In 2024 he will make his first recital tour of North America.

Recent highlights for Samson Tsoy have included concertos with the Philharmonia Orchestra (with Maxim Emelyanychev and Gergely Madaras), London Philharmonic, a Messiaen project at the Gagosian Gallery in collaboration with sculptor Richard Serra, a performance at the Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz in front of the world's most important political leaders, and recitals at Konzerthaus Berlin and Wigmore Hall.

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Carnegie Hall c Stefan Cohen

“piano magicians conduct themselves beautifully - Supernatural sounds in Prokofiev and Rachmaninov

In both, there were moments of rare magic as each pianist conducted himself with one hand and played a single line with the other: Tsoy, taking most of the melodies, in a metaphysical preparation for Cinderella’s meeting with the Prince; Kolesnikov using the sustaining pedal to suspend time as Rachmaninov’s first dance moves into its nostalgic central reverie.”

— The Arts Desk - David Nice

“[on the Schubert Fantasie in f minor] A pause, and more heavy chords announce the return of the tempo and theme of the first movement. This finale amplifies in power and intensity what we heard earlier, especially when the more sombre second theme returns as a fugue. The duo’s playing of this last dramatic section is breathtaking! We can hear the fugal entries, from both players, but somehow – without, as it were, showing the joins, there are all sorts of accompanying melodic and harmonic effects – how can just four hands make this splendid noise? ”

— Edinburgh Music Review - Kate Calder

Season Highlights

19 to 26 May 2024 UK CD-release tour; for dates see website Harmonia Mundi

1 November 2024 debut at BOZAR Brussels

8 January 2025 Muziekgebouw aan het IJ, Amsterdam