Grammy Award-winning pianist Yefim Bronfman was born in Tashkent in 1958 and immigrated to Israel in 1973. In Israel he studied with Prof. Arie Vardi and in the USA he studied at Juilliard, Marlboro and the Curtis Institute, as well as with Rudolf Firkushny, Leon Fleisher and Rudolf Serkin. Since his international debut in 1975 with Zubin Mehta and the Montreal Symphony, he has appeared with major orchestras worldwide, including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and other American orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, London Symphony, L'Orchestre de Paris, Moscow Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
He has worked with celebrated conductors, among them Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov, Franz Welser-Möst and David Zinman. Yefim Bronfman is a devoted chamber musician and recitalist. His festival engagements include Ravinia, Tanglewood, Hollywood Bowl, Aspen, Blossom, Mostly Mozart, Salzburg, Lucerne and Verbier. He has won widespread praise for his solo, chamber and orchestral recordings. In December 1999 he joined James Levine and the Philharmonia Orchestra for a special tour to premiere Disney's Fantasia 2000, on whose soundtrack he performs Shostakovich's Piano Concerto no. 2. The gala screenings with live music took place in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles. In 1991 he won the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize.