Whether elevating the harpsichord’s presence as a significant concerto instrument with leading modern orchestras of the day, working with electronics and new media, or playing some of the first harpsichord recitals in such places as the People’s Republic of China and for NPR’s acclaimed Tiny Desk, Mahan Esfahani has established himself as a new pioneer of his instrument. To that end, his creative programming and his nearly 30 commissions of new works have drawn the attention of critics and audiences across Europe, Asia, and North America. He was the first and only harpsichordist to be a BBC New Generation Artist, Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award winner, and a nominee for Gramophone’s Artist of the Year. In recognition of his contributions to musical life in London, he became the youngest recipient of the Wigmore Hall Medal in 2022, where he presented the complete keyboard works of J. S. Bach in 22 recitals.
Mr. Esfahani’s work for the harpsichord has resulted in recitals at major concert halls, among them London’s Wigmore Hall and Barbican Centre, Tokyo’s Oji Hall, Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, Shanghai Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Recital Centre, Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, Berlin Konzerthaus, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Vienna Konzerthaus, 92NY, and Cologne Philharmonie. He has appeared at festivals and on series that include San Francisco Performances, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Cal Performances, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Aspen Music Festival and School, Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, Madrid’s Fundacion Juan March, Bergen International Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Al Bustan Festival, Jerusalem Arts Festival, and Leipzig Bach Festival. He has performed concertos with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Melbourne Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, Czech Radio Symphony, Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra, Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Les Violons du Roy, Hamburger Symphoniker, Munich Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Royal Northern Sinfonia, São Paulo State Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, with which he was an artistic partner from 2016 to 2018.
His richly varied discography includes nine critically acclaimed recordings for Hyperion and Deutsche Grammophon—ranging from the works of the English virginalists and J. S. Bach to new commissions for harpsichord and mixed media—garnering one Gramophone Award, two BBC Music Magazine Awards, an Opus Klassik, a Diapason d’Or and Choc de Classica, and two ICMAs.
Equally active as a published writer and commentator, Mr. Esfahani’s work appears in such publications as The New Yorker, The Critic Magazine, The Guardian, and The Times, and on such outlets as the BBC and WDR. Following studies in musicology and history at Stanford University, where he first came into contact with the harpsichord in the studio of Elaine Thornburgh, he later studied with Peter Watchorn in Boston and completed his studies as the last student of the celebrated Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková in Prague, where he now makes his home after several years spent in London, Oxford, and Milan.
