Major Judge
Dimitri Malignan
« A promising talent, Dimitri Malignan possesses that ‘fundamental command of the letter which alone allows to attain to the spirit’, as Cortot said. » La Lettre du Musicien - Frédéric Gaussin.
Brilliant young French pianist Dimitri Malignan, winner at only 19 years of age of the Prix Cortot 2017 and a laureate of many international competitions, impresses juries, critics, and the public by his level of maturity, his musical intelligence and great sensibility.
Born in 1998 in Paris from Romanian origin parents, grandson of composer Henry Mălineanu, Dimitri begins his piano studies at the age of 5 with Nicolas Horvath.
His precocious gifts are spotted by Jean-Paul Sévilla, whose valuable teaching would be determinant to Dimitri’s formation and musical evolution.
In 2011 Ludmila Berlinskaya, Sviatoslav Richter’s disciple, welcomes Dimitri to her class at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris. Year after year, thanks to a meticulous, profound and mutually trusting common work Dimitri obtained with highest merits all the Ecole’s diplomas up to the Superior Concertist Diploma - Prix Cortot 2017, of which he is the youngest laureate. A complete musician, he equally graduated in Chamber Music, History of Music, Music Analysis, Improvisation and Writing, enabling him to indulge in his other passion, composing.
Since 2016, he completes his musical education at The Hague and Amsterdam Conservatories (the Netherlands) thanks to the serendipitous encounter with Naum Grubert whose great experience in teaching at the highest levels allows Dimitri to enhance his musical skills and notably his research on sound and style. In 2020, at the age of 22, he graduates from the Master program at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with the highest marks.
He regularly performs in France and abroad in major venues : Salle Cortot & Salle Colonne (Paris), Salledel'Institut (Orléans), StMartin-In-The-Fields (London),Konzerthaus (Berlin), De Duif (Amsterdam), Merkin Concert Hall (New-York), Romanian Athenaeum and Royal Palace (Bucharest), Philharmonics of Timisoara and Craiova (Romania), Philharmonic of Chisinau (Moldavia), Tchaïkovsky Museum in Klin (Russia) but also in Denmark, Monaco, Italy, Croatia, Belgium and Scotland. He is invited to prestigious festivals such as Flâneries Musicales de Reims, Nohant Festival Chopin, Les Nuits du Piano-Paris, les Nuits du Piano d'Erbalunga and La Clé des Portes. A serious chamber musician, he founded the Kaimos Piano Trio and the Duo Kattenburg, and regularly performs with talented musicians.
Dimitri took part in Masterclasses by renowned pianists such as Angela Hewitt, András Schiff, Jean-Philippe Collard, Abdel Rahman El Bacha, Dmitri Alexeev and Boris Berman.
Dimitri is also passionate about promoting unknown music. In 2020, he initiated the “Missing Voices” project, dedicated to Jewish composers who were murdered in the Shoah. After months of research, he organized concerts with this music and produced a documentary movie, and he hopes to get these talented composers out of the shameful oversight that surrounds them. He also collaborates with several Foundations in the Netherlands which promote other forgotten composers.
In 2020, he won a Scholarship Award of the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe, as well as the “Germaine Mounier Prize” at the Albert Roussel International Piano Competition in Paris.
After having recorded his first CD in 2018 with works of Schumann and Prokofiev (Label Passavant Music), Dimitri is preparing his next recording, dedicated to works of J.S. Bach.