About Alexandra

Alexandra Tchernakova is a pianist who moves freely between the classical canon and the music of today. She has a particular love for living composers, championing new works and fresh programming.

Principal pianist of the Gavin Bryars Ensemble, Alexandra performs across Europe at festivals and venues including La Biennale di Venezia, Superspectives (Lyon), Torino Jazz Festival, Piano City Milano, Ravenna Festival and Opera North in Leeds. She regularly partners with singers and instrumentalists, in both solo and chamber settings.

She trained at Moscow’s Gnesin Academy, Milan’s Conservatorio Verdi and the Accademia Internazionale di Imola.

Alexandra Tchernakova is a pianist whose work centres on solo recitals and chamber music. She moves freely between the classical canon and the music of today, with a particular commitment to living composers, new works and imaginative programming. Her concerts have taken her to La Biennale di Venezia, Superspectives in Lyon, Torino Jazz Festival, Piano City Milano, Pianofestival Twente, Fragments: The Wasteland Festival, Café Oto in London and St George’s Bristol.

Her debut solo album, Ramble on Piano, will be released on GB Records on 5 February 2027. Devoted entirely to music by living composers, it brings together works by Gavin Bryars, Yuri Bryars, Fazıl Say, David Ridley and Lee Bradshaw; the first single, David Ridley’s Shimmers, follows in January 2027. Around the album she is building a recital programme that pairs it with twentieth-century works including Ginastera’s Piano Sonata No. 1 and Falla’s Allegro de concierto.

Chamber music is the other pillar of her work. Since 2020 she has been principal pianist of the Gavin Bryars Ensemble, working closely with the composer himself on projects including Nothing Like the Sun with Opera North and Ramble on Cortona at the Barbican. With the Portuguese saxophonist Manuel Teles she forms a duo devoted to cross-genre contemporary repertoire; their debut album Stepdance (GB Records, 2025), recorded at the Steingraeber piano house in Bayreuth, features music by Gavin Bryars, Fazıl Say, Mário Laginha and Chick Corea. Working with singers is a natural branch of her chamber music, and she has collaborated with artists including Riccardo Zanellato, Juliana Grigoryan, Sarah Gabriel, John Potter, Leonardo Cremona and Omar Mancini.

Alongside her concert career, Alexandra is an experienced maestro collaboratore. She works at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan, was selected for Riccardo Muti’s Italian Opera Academy in 2022 (Verdi’s Requiem, Teatro Alighieri, Ravenna), and in 2023 worked on Così fan tutte at the Royal Opera House Muscat at the invitation of Ravenna Festival.

Alexandra graduated with high honours from the Gnesin Academy in Moscow, where she studied with Vladimir Ovchinnikov, Tamara Rusanova, Irina Silivanova and Valeria Petrova. She went on to a Master’s in Contemporary Chamber Music with Daniela Uccello at the Conservatorio Verdi in Milan, and postgraduate chamber music studies at the Accademia Internazionale di Imola with Nazzareno Carusi and Marco Zuccarini. She has taken masterclasses with Natalia Trull, Natalia Gutman, Andrea Turini and Giampaolo Nuti, and continues to work with Vsevolod Dvorkin. An early student of the Junior Royal Academy of Music in London and winner of Nottingham Young Pianist of the Year, she also holds a degree in French and Italian from the University of Bristol, where she was a Vice-Chancellor’s Music Scholar.