Søren Rastogi
Associate Professor, PianoSøren Rastogi is most sought after at festivals and concert venues in Denmark and internationally. He has performed with conductors such as Christian Mandeál, Douglas Bostock, Benjamin Shwartz, Mathias Aeschbacher, Ed Spanjaard, Jayce Ogren, Peter Feranec and Thomas Søndergaard in piano concertos by Mozart (K. 466, K. 491, K. 451, K. 488)) Schumann, Stravinsky, Bernstein og Gershwin.
He has on many occasions received excellent reviews for his performances. After his debut with The Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Piano Concerto by Stravinsky in 2010, the Danish newspaper “Information” wrote:“SR made his debut as a soloist with the Radio Orchestra with a perfectly balanced stage presence, which managed to combine both pianistic artistry, musical overview, sense of melodic lines, rhythmic skill, and a constant nerve with a rare lack of vanity”
Besides his career as a soloist, he has a close collaboration with leading Scandinavian singers, including barytone Johannes Weisser, with whom he has released the CD “Visiting Grieg”. “Meisterlich”, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote, and it was appointed “CD of the Month” by the British magazine Classic FM.
He is also a member of Jalina Trio, the internationally acclaimed piano trio, as well as Trio Misto with Mathias Kjøller, clarinet and Asbjørn Nørgaard, viola. He often performs as duo partner with renowned instrumentalists and has played recitals with Vilde Frang, Narek Hakhnazaryan, Sergei Dogadin, Benjamin Schmid amongst many others and he has a close collaboration with the Danish National Vocal Ensemble as pianist and musical instructor.
He has been involved in initiating several projects of high artistic quality. Examples include Copenhagen Mozart Players, with whom he performed Piano concertos by Mozart, both as a soloist and conductor as well as the multi-aesthetic performance “Clara” with text compiled by Karl Aage Rasmussen and co-performers actor Katrin Weisser and Jalina Trio.
In 2006, he was appointed “Artist in Residence” by The Round Tower of Copenhagen and the Danish National Radio. Included was a broadcasted concert series with five concerts as a soloist, chamber musician and accompagnist. His concerts have numerous times been broadcasted in the EBU.
He was educated in Copenhagen at The Royal Danish Academy of Music by Tove Lønskov and Niklas Sivelöv as well as in Berlin at Hochschule der Künste by Pascal Devoyon. He graduated from RDAM with the highest grades and had his debut from the soloist class the same place in 2005.
He has received numerous prizes and awards, for instance from the Danish Music Critics Association, and was a prizewinner at several competitions such as the 5th Nordic Piano Competition, Nyborg and the Mendelssohn Competition, Berlin.
He was among the recipients of a grant for Artistic Research from The Danish Ministry of Culture in 2013 for the project FormingPerforming, where he monitored and reflected on the process of learning the previously not performed piano concerto by Paul van Klenau. As a part of this project, he has published an e-book as well as several articles. A selection of videos with examples of his practice processes with commentaries can be found on YouTube.
Research