“I was bowled over when I first heard Leonid Gorokhov in a concert a few months ago.
With a sound reminiscent of the legendary Emanuel Feuermann, Gorokhov is one of those rare artists who combines a natural communicative skill with awesome technical command.”
Jeremy Nicholas, Classic FM Magazine

One of the finest cellists of his generation, Leonid Gorokhov often returns to his roots to perform in his home city of St. Petersburg. He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire with Anatoli Nikitin and took part in masterclasses with Daniil Shafran.

Winner of Concertino Praga (First Prize) and Paris chamber music competition (Premier Grand Prix), Leonid Gorokhov is the only Russian cellist to be awarded the Grand Prix and the First Prize of the Geneva Concours (1986). In 1995 the European Association for Encouragement of the Arts awarded the Cultural Achievement Prize to Leonid Gorokhov for “exceptional talent and outstanding artistic accomplishment”. Since 2008 Leonid Gorokhov is a Professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany.

In 1991 Leonid Gorokhov appeared as soloist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic conducted by Lord Menuhin; their strong musical rapport led to further concerto engagements with the Bergen, Berlin & Royal Philharmonic, English Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia and the Zurich Tonhalle. In 1995 he made a triumphant return to Russia in performances of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Philharmonia Hungarica, again conducted by Lord Menuhin.

Recent engagements have included the Elgar concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the UK and with the Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest; he performed the Walton Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra in the UK and in Russia he played Haydn in C with the St Petersburg Philharmonic, Dvorak Concerto with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra and the D'Albert Cello Concerto with the St Petersburg Capella.

Highlights of this season include chamber music at the Fort Macleod International Festival, Canada; performances at the Mozart Festival and the Schumann Festival at the Hannover Musik Hochschule; recital at the Imperial College, London and an evening of Bach Cello Suites, concerts with the Hermitage String Trio at the Chateau Port Royal, France, Hamburg Music Hochschule, Germany and Dart Festival, UK; masterclasses in Tarragona, Catalunya and Goslar, Germany.

Apart from his work as a soloist, Leonid Gorokhov is a founder member of the Hermitage String Trio (with Boris Garlitsky, violin, and Alexander Zemtsov, viola) and plays regularly as a duo with the pianists Kathryn Stott, Niklas Sivelöv, Nikolai Demidenko and Gerard Wyss. Duo and trio concerts have included the Båstad, Belfast, Eilat Winter, Oslo Chamber Music and Petworth Festivals, Munich and Wigmore Hall. In Australia, his residence at the Townsville Festival found him playing a wide variety of chamber music; in Russia he performed "Cello Dialogues" with Alexander Rudin at the Moscow Philharmonia; at the Athens Megaron he played a cello-guitar recital with Elena Papandreou and at the Bargemusic New York he played chamber music with Mark Peskanov. He has appeared at many prestigious festivals such as Budapest Spring, Corinthian Summer, Davos, Evian, Gstaad, Harrogate, Interlaken, Kuhmo, Ljubljana, Munich, Schleswig-Holstein and Spoleto.

Leonid Gorokhov undertakes regular recital tours of Japan and has played concertos with the Thailand Philharmonic and the Macau Chamber Orchestra. In Europe he has been invited to play among others with the Basel, BBC Scottish, Berlin Radio, Biel-Bienne and Norrkoping Symphony Orchestras; the Prague Philharmonic, Promusica Salzburg and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

Leonid Gorokhov’s discography includes recordings of Boccherini, Debussy, Haydn, Kodaly, Martinu, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Tortelier for Melodiya. For Supraphon he has recorded concertos by Martinu and Saint-Saens with the Brno Philharmonic conducted by Lord Menuhin and an album of works by Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky. Rarely performed gems feature on "Russian Discoveries" on the Olympia label and "Virtuoso Cello Transcriptions" on Cello Classics. Leonid Gorokhov’s first recording with Nikolai Demidenko was an all-Schubert album for the Munich based AGPL label. This was followed by a recording of Schnittke, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich Sonatas on ASV Gold.

“I am delighted and thrilled to hear artistry of such superior order...”
(Bernhard Greenhouse)