“Sound magician,” “Russian Eusebius,” and “brilliant virtuoso of the highest caliber” are just a few of the attributes that music critics have attributed to pianist Denys Proshayev since he won the ARD International Music Competition in 2002. Born in Brest, Belarus, he studied with Professor Vladimir Krainev, a master student of Heinrich Neuhaus, at the University of Music, Drama, and Media in Hanover. Denys Proshayev also worked for several years as an assistant in Vladimir Krainev's master class in Hanover. At the same time, he trained as a conductor with Prof. Eiji Oue and Prof. Martin Brauß. Proshayev was able to enlist Prof. Oleg Maisenberg as his artistic mentor.
He has won prizes at several international competitions, including the Vladimir Horowitz Competition, the Vladimir Krainev Competition, the International Competition for Young Pianists in Ettlingen, the Clara Haskil Competition, the Ettore Pozzoli Competition, the German National Competition for University Students, and the European Piano Competition in Bremen. Winning first prize at the ARD International Music Competition led to his international breakthrough and invitations from numerous renowned orchestras, including the Munich Philharmonic, the Danish National Orchestra, the radio symphony orchestras of BR, HR, WDR, MDR, SWR, and NDR radio symphony orchestras, the DSO Berlin, the Czech Philharmonic, the Kremerata Baltica, the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona, the Osaka and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, Munich, Zurich, and Kiev Chamber Orchestras, Ensemble Resonanz, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, Duisburg, and Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestras. Denys Proshayev has worked with conductors Gerd Albrecht, John Neal Axelrod, Alexander Dmitriev, Christopher Hogwood, Marek Janowski, Kirill Karabyts, Roman Kofman, Andrea Marcon, Eiji Oue, Michael Sanderling, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, Stefan Solyom, Daniel Inbal, and Osmo Vänskä, to name but a few. He performs in many important concert halls, such as the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Mercatorhalle Duisburg, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, and the philharmonic halls.
His chamber music partners have included Veronika Eberle, Arabella Steinbacher, Daniel Müller-Schott, and the Quarteto Casals. For several years, Proshayev has been performing in a piano duo with French pianist Nadia Mokhtari. The duo's repertoire spans all musical eras and has been enthusiastically acclaimed by the international press and audiences alike. As part of several projects by one of the most important choreographers of our time, Martin Schläpfer, he took on the piano solo part with works by J.S. Bach, L. van Beethoven, F. Liszt, A.N. Scriabin, and A. Schnittke.
Numerous prizes and honors testify to his esteem. He received the coveted Soloist Prize at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival. Denys Proshayev was also awarded the Wilhelm Weichsler Music Prize by the city of Osnabrück and has been a member of the board of the International S.W. Rachmaninoff Society since 2014. Denys Proshayev also works as a conductor. He has conducted the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Macedonia, the Prussian and Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Orchestras, the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra, and the Kammerakademie Potsdam, among others. From 2011 to 2015, he worked intensively with the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra as its principal guest conductor. In addition to performances of numerous symphonic compositions, Proshayev has conducted several opera productions.
His CD featuring piano works by Jean-Philippe Rameau, released by Sony in 2006, earned high praise from music lovers and the trade press and was included in Die Zeit's “Klassik-Genuss-Edition 2” alongside CDs by Evgeny Kissin, Midori, and Mariss Jansons. This recording was also named one of the “100 best classical CDs.” In fall 2013, Piano Classics released a Robert Schumann CD featuring Papillons, Op. 2, Davidsbündlertänze, Op. 6, and Arabesque, Op. 18, which was enthusiastically celebrated by The Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Bayerischer Rundfunk. This recording was made in memory of Proshayev's long-time teacher and concert dedicatee Vladimir Krainev. This recording was made in memory of Proshayev's long-time teacher and concert dedicatee Vladimir Krainev.
In 2019, the artist released a CD with works by J.S. Bach, J.P. Rameau, and A. Schnittke's “Suite in Old Style” arranged for piano four hands by Alexander Shchetynsky, which Proshayev premiered with Nadia Mokhtari in 2016 to great acclaim. This premiere led to the publication of the arrangement by Hans Sikorski Verlag in Hamburg.
In 2018, Denys Proshayev and Nadia Mokhtari founded Musikfest Melle, Lower Saxony's first piano festival, which was a resounding success right from its very first edition.
Denys Proshayev has been teaching for over 20 years, first as an assistant to Prof. Vladimir Krainev at the University of Music, Drama, and Media in Hanover, then at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar and the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. In 2024, he was appointed professor at the University of Music in Karlsruhe.