Composer

Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy’s duo debut album combined works by Schubert with the spellbinding Schubert-inspired Trompe-l’œil, which they commissioned from Ukrainian composer Leonid Desyatnikov for the 2023 Aldeburgh Festival and brought to Wigmore Hall soon after. They are joined by the acclaimed Ukrainian-born tenor Bogdan Volkov, Opernwelt’s Singer of the Year 2025, and cellist Adrian Brendel, in a programme that celebrates the creative vision of a composer feted not least for his opera The Children of Rosenthal, scintillating cinema scores and Dichterliebe und -leben, a cycle of songs to the absurdist author Daniil Kharms and avantgarde poet and playwright Nikolay Oleynikov.

EPSG:4326

Pavel Kolesnikov piano; Samson Tsoy piano; Bogdan Volkov tenor; Adrian Brendel cello

Wigmore Hall

A hilarious circus and musical romp - combining queer theatre, cabaret, circus and illusion.

Trompe l'Oeil is an American drag queen's journey through a surreal Wizard of Oz / 2016 American landscape - with drag kings and queens, jaw-dropping sex fiends and flying bats and trampolines!  

Not to be overlooked is the show’s lyrical virtuosity, where hidden messages are impossibly written within. Now in its 6th year, with Off Broadway and London shows to its credit - Trompe l'Oeil is more cultish, prescient - and necessary - than ever!

Trompe l'Oeil

The University of Manchester

In 2026, the Free State of Saxony will celebrate a statewide "Year of Jewish Culture" – 100 years after the founding of the first Saxon state association of Jewish communities. Under the title "Tacheles," projects, events, and exhibitions will make Saxony's rich Jewish culture and history, past, present, and future, as well as irretrievable losses, visible and audible for a year. Our chamber concert also addresses this theme, featuring well-known and lesser-known compositions from a wide variety of genres spanning approximately one hundred years of Jewish musical creation.

Tacheles

Augustusplatz

Sweden's Radio Symphony Orchestra meets Ukrainian musician colleagues on Ukraine's Independence Day. We will feel the presence of Ukrainian folk music, including in the newly composed Reflections on a Folk Song by Leonid Desyatnikov, but also experience music that borrows tones from completely different times and places, as in the modern classic Der Bote , where Valentin Silvestrov weaved together music by Mozart with a contemporary tonality. The music knows no borders, but the heart of this concert is in Ukraine.

Looking towards Ukraine

SR Berwaldhallen

Praised for the “electrifying intimacy” of their playing (The Guardian), pianists Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy have been performing as a duo since 2009 in addition to their flourishing solo careers. For their Carnegie Hall piano-duo debut, they present the fiendish original four-hands version of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring together with Leonid Desyatnikov’s Trompe-l'œil, commissioned for them by the Aldeburgh Festival in 2023. This is followed by Schubert's F-Minor Fantasie, a masterpiece of the four-hands repertoire.

Pavel Kolesnikov, Piano Samson Tsoy, Piano

Carnegie Hall

A world premiere ballet by Tiler Peck, a longtime principal dancer known for her astute sense of musicality, joins works from Resident Choreographer Justin Peck and Alexei Ratmansky, who joins the Company in an official capacity for the first time for the 2023-24 Season, as artist in residence. Peck’s Rotunda, with a commissioned score by the prominent American composer Nico Muhly, is infused with a sense of community and togetherness, while Ratmansky’s Odesa, danced to incidental music from the 1990 Russian movie Sunset, features an intriguing musical mix ranging from tango to klezmer, and nods to the movie’s roots in Isaac Babel’s tales of Jewish gangsters in the titular city.

New Combinations

Lincoln Center

ABT Artist in Residence Alexei Ratmansky invites audiences to experience a festive village gathering.  Set to the music of Leonid Desyatnikov, Songs of Bukovina explores the folk traditions of the Eastern European mountains.

Songs of Bukovina

University of Iowa

Roosevelt University

Stony Brook University

Cleverly curated programs and a spirit of artistic discovery are the hallmarks that have established Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher as one of the most internationally renowned piano duos. Their Blaibach recital culminates in Stravinsky's groundbreaking "The Rite of Spring" – condensed primal power for piano four-hands.

GrauSchumacher Piano Duo

Blaibach Concert Hall

Pavel Kolesnikov’s poetic pianism flows from his ability to conjure the finest of tonal contrasts and spellbinding changes of mood. Aptly described by the Guardian following his Wigmore Hall recital last December as ‘a virtuosic sculptor in sound’, he returns with a selection of Preludes from Leonid Desyatnikov’s Songs of Bukovina, a cycle of haunting miniatures from 2017-18 infused with Ukrainian, Romanian, Jewish and Balkan influences, alongside Tchaikovsky’s dozen meditations on The Seasons.

Composer

Leonid Desyatnikov

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 15, 2026

GrauSchumacher Piano Duo · Konzerthaus Blaibach

Dec 30, 2026

Pavel Kolesnikov piano · Wigmore Hall

Past events

Sep 18, 2026

Pavel Kolesnikov piano; Samson Tsoy piano; Bogdan Volkov tenor; Adrian Brendel cello · Wigmore Hall

Apr 18 - May 2, 2026

Trompe l'Oeil · Contact

About

Leonid Desyatnikov hasn't added a bio