Kunal Lahiry - NOSPR

Indian-American pianist Kunal Lahiry is a former BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the 2021 Carl Bechstein Foundation scholarship. In the 2025/26 season, Kunal continues his close partnership with Icelandic soprano Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir through the ECHO Rising Stars initiative, giving recitals at venues including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonie de Paris and BOZAR Brussels. He rejoins mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron for recitals in Madrid and Barcelona, tenor Freddie Ballentine for a performance of their program Our People at 92nd St Y, New York, and returns to Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall to present a new program celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States with baritone Jarrett Ott. This season will also see the premiere of Kunal’s new solo piano program Journey to Softness which he performs at the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin and Philharmonie Duisburg.

During the 2024/25 season, he presented Power and the Glory, a program exploring colonialism and its musical resonances across the world, on tour throughout the United States, culminating in a triumphant, sold-out Carnegie Hall debut. His recent projects include Apparition (2023), a reimagining of George Crumb’s cycle interwoven with Nordic music and nominated for Best Live Music Act of the Year at the Icelandic Music Awards; Our People (Kennedy Center, 2022), celebrating Black and LGBTQ voices; and Sleep Cycle of an Insomniac (Heidelberger Frühling Lied.LAB, 2022), an immersive journey inspired by Max Richter’s Sleep. His large-scale project TransWinterreise reimagines Schubert’s Winterreise through a queer lens, in collaboration with 24 contemporary composers and poets.

In 2025/26, Kunal will make his solo recital debuts at the Pierre Boulez Saal and the Duisburg Philharmonie with Journey to Softness, as well as a tour of major European concert halls with Icelandic soprano Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir as part of the ECHO Rising Stars program.

His cross-disciplinary collaborations include Raw Cacao with drag artist Le Gateau Chocolat, an eclectic fusion of cabaret, folk, disco, and art song; performances with singer Lie Ning, blending pianism and pop aesthetics; and an appearance at the Berlin Jazz Festival with AŸA, exploring the boundaries between improvisation, pop, and jazz.

As Artist-in-Residence at LIFE Victoria Barcelona (2023–24), he presented several recital formats including Five Centuries of Song and collaborated with soprano Siobhan Stagg. He also served as musical assistant for the creation of Nine Jewelled Dear at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in partnership with the LUMA Foundation (Arles). In 2023, he conceived and curated the Queer Song Festival at St. George’s Bristol, broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

His recent international tours have taken him to India (2024) – with a celebrated return recital at the NCPA Mumbai – as well as to the Musikverein (Vienna), Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg), Wigmore Hall (London), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Gulbenkian (Lisbon), Théâtre de l’Athénée (Paris), and Konzerthaus Berlin.

On the recording front, he released the single Unsung (2023) with cellist Sophie Kauer (of the film TÁR), on Deutsche Grammophon; it reached #1 on the U.S. Classical On-Demand Audio Streaming Chart. He will return to Carnegie Hall (Weill Recital Hall) in 2026 alongside baritone Jarrett Ott.

Kunal has collaborated with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, premiering works by Julia Perry and Pamela Harrison, and continues to champion underrepresented twentieth-century composers.

Originally from Gainesville, Georgia, he is a graduate of McGill University (Schulich Scholar) and the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler (Berlin), with distinction in Lied performance. He has taken part in prestigious academies including Royaumont-Orsay, the Carnegie Hall Song Studio (under Renée Fleming), Heidelberg Lied Academy (Thomas Hampson), and the Samling Institute.

Based in Berlin, he is an Equilibrium Young Artist, Samling Artist, Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Artist, and Britten Pears Young Artist.