Alexander Kobrin

Alexander Yevgenyevich Kobrin (Александр Кобрин) was born March 20, 1980, in Moscow, Russia. He is a music teacher and pianist.

At the age of five, he enrolled in the Gnessin Special School of Music, where his primary teacher was Tatiana Zelikman. When he turned eighteen, he enrolled at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, as a student of the legendary teacher, Lev Naumov. He holds a graduate degree from that institution.

As a teenager, Kobrin won several youth piano competitions, but he won his first adult competition, the Scottish International Piano Competition when he was 18. The next year, in 1999, he won the Busoni Competition. In 2000, the year, Yundi Li was the winner, Kobrin was third at the XIV International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. Kobrin later won the top prize at Japan's Hamamatsu competition.

In June 2005 he won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Among his prizes included a $20,000 cash award, a compact disc recording, concert tours, professional management both in the United States and Europe, a professional attire stipend and subsidized travel in the United States.

Before his Cliburn victory, Kobrin performed with the Moscow Virtuosi, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Virtuosi of Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the Rio de Janeiro Symphonic Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, and the Osaka and Tokyo Symphony Orchestras. Since then, he has performed with other orchestras, including The New York Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and others.

Kobrin has received many positive concert reviews, including The New York Times stating that "He surrendered neither the smoothness nor the dynamic fluidity that the modern piano allows, and he gave his sense of fantasy free rein...creating an almost confessional spirit."

Kobrin has recorded an all-Chopin compact disc along with the compact disc of some of his performances at the Van Cliburn competition. Quartz Music and Centaur Records have produced recordings by Kobrin, including his most recent Complete Chopin Sonatas album. Kobrin formerly taught at the Gnessin State Academy of Music in Moscow, but in the fall of 2009, he relocated to the United States. He has taught at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. Kobrin joined the piano faculty at the Eastman School of Music in the fall of 2017. Starting in the fall of 2023, Kobrin will also be joining the faculty at Università della Svizzera italiana in continuing education piano department. He continues to perform, mainly as a soloist and chamber musician, and frequently appears as a jury member at international piano competitions.