Biography
"You listen to him for the first time and you know that he is speaking to you directly, with no loyalties beyond himself, his way of understanding interpretation. There is no intermediate between the strength that guides his fingers on the keyboard and your ability to feel that something unprecedented is happening right there."
-Fernando Merino
Rafael Kyrychenko, a Portuguese pianist, is a winner of numerous important international prizes, capturing the audiences with his powerful performances and creative ideas. He began his studies at 5 years old with his mother, Cristina Pliousnina. Rafael, since his early ages, showed a great admiration for music, and having grown into a family of musicians, his wonder of this world only grew stronger.
Since then, he has travelled internationally achieving his other 1st and 2nd prizes in various countries such as Denmark, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Estonia, San Marino, Cyprus and also in the United States. He has also participated in masterclasses and private lessons with world renowned musicians such as Philippe Entremont, Dmitry Bashkirov, Vitaly Samoshko, Markus Groh, Michel Béroff, Stanislav Ioudenitch, Rena Shereshevskaya, Elizabeth Leonskaja, among others.
\\
During the Paris International Summer Sessions, he had the opportunity to play his debut in the Salle Cortort and the Fountainebleau Palace. Rafael also performed in prestiged halls such as the Sala Suggia da Casa da Música (Porto) and CCB (Lisbon, Portugal); Estonia Concert Hall (Tallinn, Estónia); Genebra Congress Hall (Narva); Charlottenborg Festsal (Copenhagen, Denmark); Flagey Studio 1 (Brussels, Belgium); Hamamatsu Act City (Japan), Palau de la Musica Catalana (Barcelona, Spain), Sala de Congressos and Teatro Baltazar Dias (Funchal, Madeira); DeSantis Chapel de Palm Beach Atlantic University (EUA), among others.
Along with his solo recitals, Rafael has also performed under the baton of world-renowned conductors such as Mikhail Jurowski, Philippe Entremont, Andris Poga, Joseph Swensen, Michael Schønwandt, Vasily Sinaisky, Andrew Gourlay, Cesário Costa and Rui Massena.
Having finished his studies in the Professional Course in the Madeira School of Arts, his education took him to the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth under the mastership of Maria João Pires from 2014 until 2016. Between 2014 and 2021, he studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels with Prof. Daniel Blumenthal, and between 2019 and 2021 also attended the Imola Piano Academy with Prof. Leonid Margarius. Since 2021, he has moved to Madrid and is currently studying with Prof. Milana Chernyavska at the Escuela de Música Reina Sofia.