Yefim Bronfman

Yefim Bronfman was born in 1958 in Tashkent

Bronfman was born in 1958 in Tashkent to a Jewish family of musicians. His father Naum was concertmaster of the city opera orchestra, and his mother Pauline was a pianist. He began lessons with his mother and attended a music school for gifted children, where he first performed with the school orchestra in 1970.

He immigrated to Israel in 1973 and soon played with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. In 1974 a scholarship let him study with Arie Vardi at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel Aviv. In 1976 he moved to New York to study with Rudolf Firkušný at Juilliard, and he also studied with Leon Fleisher and Rudolf Serkin.

He made his North American debut in 1975 with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He first played with the New York Philharmonic in 1978 and at Carnegie Hall in 1989, the year he became an American citizen. In 1991 he returned to Russia for recitals with Isaac Stern.

In 1997 he won a Grammy for recording the 3 Bartók piano concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He joined the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music in 2020 and also teaches at the Manhattan School of Music. He lives in Manhattan.