Biography
“Kunz was sensational. His technique and delivery were out of this world.”The Herald
Named among tomorrow's 10 great pianists by BBC Music Magazine, Eduard has performed with more than 70 orchestras worldwide — the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, all the BBC orchestras (Symphony, Concert, Philharmonic, Scottish, Wales, Belfast), the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra of London, the Hallé and London Musici, the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Braunschweig Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra and the Orchestra of Castilla y León, the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto and the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano, all the orchestras of Poland including the Warsaw Philharmonic, all the Romanian orchestras including the George Enescu Philharmonic, and the orchestras of Yerevan, Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka — with such conductors as Tugan Sokhiev, Edward Gardner, Cristian Mandeal, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Alexander Joel and Nikolai Alekseev, among many others.
His solo recitals have taken him to Wigmore Hall in London, the Louvre in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and the Sala Verdi in Milan — where he performed 50 Scarlatti sonatas alongside other repertoire — as well as the Nobel Hall and Aula in Oslo, the Palau in Barcelona and Bilbao, Tokyo's Bunka Kaikan and Nikkei halls, the Kyoto Concert Hall, most of the great concert halls of Eastern Europe, the Dubai concert series, and halls in Dallas, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Washington and New York.
Eduard returns to Russia regularly, where he performs with the Russian National and Russian National Youth orchestras, the orchestras of the Moscow and St Petersburg State Philharmonics and many others, and gives recitals at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Moscow International House of Music, and both the St Petersburg Philharmonic and Capella halls.
He has toured Romania extensively, bringing the Yamaha CFX piano from the Berlin Philharmonie for recitals and for tours with violinist Alexandru Tomescu of the complete Prokofiev and complete Enescu repertoire for piano and violin. The final concert of the last tour, from Sala Radio, was broadcast on TVR 1 and TVR HD at prime time, and a documentary about the tour (directed by A. Condurache) won the Grand Prix of Simfest 2016.
Eduard is co-founder of the Kunz Piano Academy in Brașov, Romania, where twice a year he invites young artists from around the world for one or two weeks of public masterclasses on the concert stage. He gives regular masterclasses at the conservatories of Yerevan and Chișinău, the universities of Oslo and the State of Georgia, and in Moscow and Bucharest. Since 2012 he has led a yearly series of masterclasses across all 31 major conservatories of China, and is a guest professor at the Schlern Academy in South Tyrol, Italy, and the Nagoya Academy in Japan. In 2018 he received the highest professorial rank, Professor Docent, from Josip Strossmayer University in Croatia.
In 2017 Eduard became the first pianist in history to present Yamaha Disklavier technology in remote masterclasses in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong.
His radio recordings include the Mozart Double Concerto with the BBC Scottish Orchestra, the Beethoven Third and Tchaikovsky First concertos with the Orchestra of Northern Ireland, the Rachmaninov Second with the BBC Concert Orchestra in London, the Rachmaninov Paganini Variations with both the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Grieg Concerto with the Gnessin Virtuosi, and the Tchaikovsky First and Second concertos with the Orchestra di Padova — as well as eight solo recital programmes for BBC Radio 3 and further broadcasts for stations such as Deutsche Kultur, Radio France and Orfeus.
His most recent album, It Takes Two to Tango, recorded in 2020 with the Russian multi-instrumentalist Yuri Medyanik, comprises three tangos arranged for piano and bayan and is available on all digital platforms.
Eduard studied at Omsk Music School No. 3 with Galina Gorbunova, at the Gnessin Special School for Gifted Children under its director Mikhail Khokhlov, at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory with the celebrated Andrei Diev, and at the Royal Northern College of Music with Norma Fisher and Mark Ray. He graduated with top honours and the Gold Medal, presented to him by the Duchess of York.
His awards include 14 first prizes at major competitions — the Grand Prix of the Enescu Competition in Bucharest, Gold Medals at both the New Orleans Competition in the United States and the Paderewski Competition in Poland, the Zuloaga Award in Spain, and the Gold Trophy of Andorra. Further honours include a Medal from the Worshipful Company of Musicians in London, awards from the Hattori and Musical foundations of London, the Dame Myra Hess Award, the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe award, an award from the Spivakov Foundation, and the Svyatoslav Richter Award from the Rostropovich Foundation in Moscow.
His chamber-music partners include Oxana Shilova, Yulian Rachlin, Patricia Kopachinskaya, Sol Gabetta, Vilde Frang, Boris Andrianov, Aleksandr Ghindin, Andrei Diev and Yuriy Medyanik, among others.
Eduard is a laureate of the Verbier Festival, one of the most prestigious festivals of classical music. He is an Artist of the Moscow Philharmonic Society in Russia, a former BBC Artist in the United Kingdom, and a ProArte Artist in Japan. In 2011 he was named an Official Global Artist of Yamaha — a unique position among the absolute elite of performing professionals.
