- GRAMMY® NOMINATION FOR BACH GOLDBERG VARIATIONS ALBUM
- CULMINATES GOLDBERG VARIATIONS TOUR OF 90 DATES ACROSS SIX CONTINENTS REACHING OVER 120,000 PEOPLE
- REACHES ONE BILLION CAREER STREAMS
- NAMED MUSICAL AMERICA INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR
“A sonic alchemist” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung)
Víkingur Ólafsson celebrates a stellar end to 2024, which sees him receive his first GRAMMY Award® nomination -for Best Classical Instrumental Solo – culminate his 90-date Goldberg Variations globaltour, and be named Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year 2024. Ólafsson was also awarded the Opus Klassik for best-selling classical album of 2024 in Germany for his Goldberg Variations, while his overall streaming figures grew significantly tosurpass the remarkable landmark of one billion. Ólafsson’s Goldberg Variations alone has now reached over 88 million streams.
2024 saw the conclusion of Ólafsson’s hugely successful season-long tour of Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations, which attracted global audience numbers of over 120,000. Superlative reviews met the concert dates from London to LA via New York (Carnegie Hall), São Paulo, Shanghai and Sydney.
Víkingur Ólafsson comments, “Thank you to everyone who has listened and supported my work this year, whether that be coming out to catch the Goldberg Variations tour, or listening online. To see the resonance of this most glorious and incomparable piece of music across the world is deeply heartening. And thank you to Johann Sebastian Bach. The Goldberg Variations will always be the music of the future.”
Forthcoming highlights include the world premiere (January 2025, with San Francisco Symphony Orchestra) of After the Fall, a new piano concerto written for Ólafsson by John Adams and inspired, in part, by his Bach interpretations. Ólafsson will then give the work’s premieres in Zürich, Paris and Vienna – the first and last of these as part of his season as Artist-in-Focus at the Tonhalle Zürich and Vienna Musikverein respectively. Ólafsson is also the current Artist-in-Residence at Konserthuset Stockholm.
In early 2025 Ólafsson will be reunited with Yuja Wang for the North American continuation of the high-profile duo programme they toured across Europe in October, taking in such venues as Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Ólafsson goes on to tour with Tonhalle Zürich and Paavo Järvi, and then perform his new solo recital of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas, with multiple dates across Europe and the US.