Born in Moscow in 1980, Alexander Kobrin completed his studies in at the Gnessin Academy of Music under Tatiana Zelikman and at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory under Lev Naumov, where he received his master's degree.
First-prize winner of the 1999 Busoni Competition and a top prizewinner of both the 2000 Chopin and 2003 Hamamatsu Competitions, Alexander Kobrin has toured extensively throughout Europe, South America, and Asia. As a result of his triumph at the 2005 Cliburn Competition, he recently made his Kennedy Center recital debut. His 2006-2007 season was launched by his New York Philharmonic debut at Lincoln Center in July, and will continue with debuts at the Boulder Music Festival in Colorado, La Roque d'Antheron (France), and the Tuscan Sun Festival in Italy, where he will collaborate with celebrated violinist Nikolai Znaider and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. At the age of twenty-five, Mr. Kobrin was awarded the Nancy Lee and Perry R. Bass Gold Medal at the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition (2005).
Alexander Kobrin recordings for harmonia mundi include works by Brahms and Rachmaninoff. He has started a recording project devoted to Chopin for the King label in Japan. He is also prominently featured in In the Heart of Music, the film documentary about the Twelfth Cliburn Competition, which premiered on PBS stations across the United States in the fall of 2005. When Alexander Kobrin is not performing, he teaches at the Moscow State Gnessin Academy of Music.
