Arsenii Moon has emerged as a striking new voice on the international piano scene — a pianist of exceptional refinement and individuality. His victory at the 64th Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition brought not only First Prize, but also the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Award — conferred only by unanimous decision of the jury and presented for the first time in nearly three decades — as well as the Audience Prize.
Critics have recognised in Moon an artist of uncommon sensitivity and depth. Il Giornale della Musica praised his “aristocratically gentle, poetically wrought pianism, attentive to every detail and shade.” Yet what most sets him apart is the intensity of his presence in performance: as the Hamburger Abendblatt wrote, “Moon doesn’t just play the piece, he immerses himself in the music, celebrating its aura. The Kleine Saal becomes a spiritual place.”
Born in St Petersburg in 1999, Arsenii Moon began studying piano at the age of six and made his orchestral debut with the St Petersburg Philharmonia at ten. He later studied with Alexander Sandler at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory before graduating from The Juilliard School in 2024, where he studied under Sergei Babayan.
Bonn · Beethoven-Haus · duo recital
Hamburg · Laeiszhalle · duo recital
Prague · Bohuslav Martinů Hall · duo recital
Turin · Auditorium RAI · OSN della RAI
Lille · Lille Piano Festival
Würzburg · Mozartfest
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern · Festspiele MV
Arsenii Moon features among the Rising Stars on Deutsche Grammophon’s STAGE+ platform, with an audiovisual portrait from the Busoni Competition final. His recordings of Debussy’s Feux d’artifice, Cloches à travers les feuilles and Satie’s Gnossienne No. 3 are included in the label’s compilation 100 Great Musical Moments (2024), alongside Daniel Barenboim, Hélène Grimaud, Kian Soltani and Andreas Ottensamer.
A debut solo recording is forthcoming with Apple Music / Platoon: Scriabin and Chopin, conceived as an inward journey — unhurried, concentrated, shaped from within.
He has collaborated with ensembles including the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, Staatskapelle Weimar, Danish Philharmonic Orchestra, Münchener Kammerorchester, Festival Strings Lucerne and Prague Philharmonia, and with conductors such as Stanislav Kochanovsky, Joseph Swensen, Mei-Ann Chen, Alevtina Ioffe, Alessandro Bonato, Enrico Onofri, Dmitri Matvienko and Valery Gergiev. His debut with Filarmonica della Scala under Robert Treviño drew immediate acclaim and was followed by an invitation to return in 2028.
