Kenny Broberg

Throughout his promising career, prior to winning the American Pianist Awards in 2021 and the Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship, Kenny Broberg won the silver medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2017 and the bronze medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019, in addition to awards at the Hastings, Sydney, Seattle, and New Orleans international piano competitions, becoming one of the most internationally awarded and recognized pianists of his generation.
Broberg is praised for his ingenious, intelligent, and profound performances. “Broberg mastered everything he played over the weekend, drawing a palette of emotions from each register,” writes the Indianapolis Star about his performance in the American Pianists Awards final. “In Liszt’s ‘Dante Sonata’ from Years of Pilgrimage, the pianist easily captured the drama along the way, bringing all the energy of those emotions together in the epic finale.”
Attributing his first contact with classical music to his Italian grandfather’s passion for the Three Tenors, Broberg began his piano lessons on the family’s upright piano when he was six years old. During his childhood in Minneapolis, he began studying piano with Dr. Joseph Zins at the Crocus Hill Studios in Saint Paul. Throughout his secondary education, he combined his musical classes with baseball and hockey. He remains an avid fan of the Minnesota Twins and the Wild and checks the scores during his rehearsal breaks.
Broberg holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston, where he studied with Nancy Weems. He continued his studies at Park University in Parkville, Missouri, under the direction of Stanislav Ioudenitch, gold medalist at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Performing on stages and in concert halls throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America, Broberg has worked with some of the most respected conductors in the world, including Ludovic Morlot, Kent Nagano, Leonard Slatkin, Vasily Petrenko, Nicholas Milton, John Storgårds, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Gerard Schwarz, and Stilian Kirov. He has collaborated with the Royal Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Minnesota, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Sydney, Seattle, and Fort Worth, among others. He has appeared on WQXR, Performance Today, Minnesota Public Radio, and ABC Radio Australia, and presented his original composition “Bacarolle” on NPR in March 2021.
As part of the American Pianist Awards, he released the album ‘Sonatas de Medtner, Rachmaninov y Scriabin’ in 2022 with the Steinway & Sons label. The Christel DeHaan Classical Fellowship provides Broberg with an award valued at $200,000 to assist him in the formation of his musical career. This includes $50,000 in cash, two years of development and professional assistance, and opportunities to play around the world. Broberg will also work with students and perform during his stay as artist-in-residence at the University of Indianapolis. Before beginning his international concerts, Broberg performed in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, for the concert “KC Celebrates Kenny Broberg” in September 2021.
Since the 2022-2023 academic year, Broberg has been an Assistant Professor of the Banco Santander Foundation Piano Chair, which is directed by Professor Stanislav Ioudenitch at the Reina Sofía School of Music.