Peter Jablonski is an award-winning internationally acclaimed Swedish pianist. Discovered by Abbado and Ashkenazy and signed by Decca in his seventeenth year, he went on to perform, collaborate, and record with many of the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, which include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Kirov (now Mariinsky), La Scala Philharmonic, Tonhalle Zurich, Orchestre Nationale de France, NHK Tokyo, DSO Berlin, Warsaw Philharmonic, Philadelphia, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Cleveland Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valery Gergiev, Andris Nelsons, Daniel Harding, Kurt Sanderling, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Riccardo Chailly, Daniele Gatti, and Myung-Whun Chung, to name a few. 

 

He has performed and recorded the complete piano concertos by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Bartók, and all piano sonatas by Prokofiev. Hailed an ‘unconventional virtuoso’ (Present Arts), during his three-decade-long career he developed a diverse repertoire that includes works by Barber, Gershwin, Szymanowski, Lutosławski, Copland, Stenhammar, with most recent additions of such Scandinavian and European composers as Valborg Aulin, Elfrida Andrée, Laura Netzel, Johanna Müller-Hermann, and Alexey Stanchinsky. 

 

He worked with composers Witold Lutosławski and Arvo Pärt, and had a number of works composed for, and dedicated to him, including Wojciech Kilar’s Piano Concerto, for which he won the Orpheus award for the world premiere performance at the Warsaw Autumn Festival. He remains a supporter of today’s composers and regularly gives world premieres of new works, together with those that have been neglected by music history. 

 

Jablonski’s extensive discography includes recordings he has made for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, Altara, Octavia, and Ondine labels. He received numerous awards for his recordings, which include the Edison award for best concerto recording of Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto, Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and Lutoslawski’s Paganini Rhapsody with Ashkenazy and RPO for Decca. He was presented with the Grammophone Classical Music Award for his Deutsche Grammophone recording of works by Cécile Chaminade with Anne Sofie von Otter and Bengt Forsberg.

 

Peter Jablonski is the recipient of the Litteris et Artibus medal for his services to culture, granted to him by the King of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf. He is also the winner of a prestigious prize Svenskar i Världen (International Swedish Personality of the Year), receiving it before ABBA and Astrid Lindgren.  

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September 2020

 

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Born in the south of Sweden to Swedish and Polish parents, Peter showed an early talent for music when he started playing the drums at the age of five and piano at six. Rapid development on the drums led to performances at some major festivals and venues including the 'Village Vanguard' in New York aged nine and with musicians such as Buddy Rich and Thad Jones. Peter even received praise from the legendary Miles Davis.  

Meanwhile, Peter's interest developed in the classical piano repertoire which led to his first solo performance aged eleven and his debut with orchestra, playing Mozart's piano concerto in G, K.453 the following year. At this time he was accepted to the Malmo Academy of Music to pursue studies in piano and percussion and by the time of his graduation he was invited to perform Beethoven's Concerto No.1 with the Swedish, Danish and Polish radio orchestras. Further studies in piano and conducting followed at the Royal College of Music in London when, in his final year, Peter was heard by Vladimir Ashkenazy who invited him to record his debut disc for Decca with Ashkenazy conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London.

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Two years later he again joined forces with Ashkenazy and the RPO, this time playing Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1, Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini and Lutoslawski's Paganini Rhapsody (a work he studies with the composer). This CD went on to win the coveted Edison award for 'best concerto recording'.

Other recordings include the complete concertos of Tchaikovsky conducted by Peter Maag and Charles Dutoit, the Scriabin concerto and Prometheus with Vladimir Ashkenazy, the complete sonatas by Prokofiev and several other discs with solo works by Chopin, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Grieg and the cello sonatas of Prokofiev & Shostakovich with Ralph Kirshbaum.

His most recent recording is the critically acclaimed Mazurkas by Scriabin for the Ondime label, released in 2020. A live performance of the Gershwin Second Rhapsody was issued in March 2010 by the BBC Music Magazine.

 

Since his debut in Washington DC in 1992 and at the Royal Festival Hall in London 1993, Peter has worked with many of the worlds finest orchestras including the Philadelphia, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, DSO Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Kirov, Tonhalle Zurich, Orchestre Nationale de France, La Scala Philharmonic and NHK Tokyo conducted by, among others, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung, Charles Dutoit, Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniele Gatti, Kurt Sanderling and Esa-Pekka Salonen. 

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Peter received the Orpheus award for his world premier performance of Wojciech Kilar's Piano Concerto at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, a work written for and dedicated to him. In 2005 he was awarded the Litteris et Artibus medal by the King of Sweden.  

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Peter is Artistic Director of Karlskrona International Piano Festival in Sweden. 

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