Grammy-nominated cellist Sergey Antonov enjoys a versatile career as a soloist and chamber musician. Critics throughout the world have hailed him as “destined for cello superstardom” -Washington Post, “combining formidable technique and an incredibly warm, penetrating and vibrant tone to a romantic musical sensibility to create music – making of a highest caliber” – Budapest Sun. After one of the Newport Festival concerts in RI, a critic wrote “… a performance with soaring phrases and a tone to die for.” Sergey’s performance of the Elgar concerto drew the critic of the Moscow’s Daily Telegraph to write: “[he] is a musician who has his own inner space, where he submerges himself from the very first sound…who turns each phrase, every deeply felt sound into an event of his own inner monologue. The theme of this monologue is existential suffering; a change of intricately noted emotions, directly related to the unexplainable condition known as Spiritual Life.” A Canadian critic wrote: “Antonov conveyed …a world of expression from plaintive hope to existential pathos.” One of the recent reviewers wrote, “No virtuosic challenge is more than his equal.”
After winning the Gold Medal in the 2007 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Russia, Sergey has been touring extensively throughout Europe, Asia, North and South America, performing in halls ranging from the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory to the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. He has collaborated with musicians such as Denis Matsuev, Bernadene Blaha, Kevin Fitz Gerald, Ekaterina Mechetina, Harve A’ Kaoua, Carl Ponten, Dora Schwartzberg, John Lenehan, Colin Carr, Cynthia Phelps, Martin Chalifour, David Chan, among others, as well as his permanent piano partner Ilya Kazantsev. The duo has recorded several CDs of traditional cello-piano repertoire as well as their own transcriptions, recorded on their CD Elegy. Sergey is a member of the acclaimed Hermitage Piano Trio with Ilya Kazantsev and violinist Misha Keylin.
In addition to being the 2007 Tchaikovsky gold medal winner for Cello, Antonov has been a recipient of the 2008 Golden Talent Award by the Russian Performing Arts Foundation as well as garnering top prizes at the Justuz Friedrich Dotzhauer Competition, Germany, David Popper International Cello Competition, Hungary, American String Teachers Association in Detroit. His chamber ensemble performances have also brought him honors from the Lyrica Chamber Music Series as their “Young Artist of the Year,” and First Prizes from the Chamber Music Foundation of New England and the Swedish International Duo Competition
Antonov collaborated with such maestros as Vladimir Spivakov, Dmitry Sitkovetsky Yan Pascal Tortilier, Mikhail Pletnev, Maxim Vengerov, Oue Eiji, Yuri Simonov, Christopher Zimmerman, Uri Bashmet, Jonathan McPhee, Yuri Botnari, Alexey Shabalin, among many others. He made his conducting debut in the spring of 2014. Sergey frequently gives master classes to solo cellists and chamber music groups in colleges and universities throughout the world.
Born into a family of cellists, Sergey started playing the instrument at age five with his mother, Maria Zhuravleva, as his teacher. She later became the recipient of the National 2014 Teacher of the Year Award in Russia. Sergey studied at the Central Music School and graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, in the studio of the renowned professor Natalia Shakhovskaya.
Sergey holds an Artist Diploma from the Longy School of Music in Boston, where he worked with the Grammy-nominated cellist Terry King. While a student at the Moscow Conservatory, Sergey learned under the tutelage of M. Rostropovich.
Sergey has appeared on the Russian National Television in performances with the Moscow Philharmonic in their “Stars of the 21st Century” series, and in live concerts on Boston’s NPR station WGBH. His performances were also broadcast by NHK Japan.
He lives in New York with his wife Nika and son Noah.