"A wonderful concert... very positive feedback from everyone.  They particularly liked the programme..... his playing displayed great expression and variety of tone - a very light touch but also power and depth... people really enjoyed the fact that he told them so much about not just the pieces he was playing but put them into context with information about the composer and the period the pieces were composed in.... A truly fantastic concert... such a lovely person too."

Katharine Suslak, Moffat Music Society 27 March 2026

"... a phenomenal performance ... his playing displayed great expression and variety of tone - a very light touch but also power and depth... his choice of programme really demonstrated his artistry and skill."

Katharine Suslak, Moffat Music Society,
Loaningdale Piano Festival performance, April 2023

"Although he is superb at the work’s ominous rumblings and lightning-fingered pyrotechnics, it was actually the slower, more meditative, central section that impressed the most. Here was real depth of feeling, less often encountered in younger players, however skilful.
A very thoughtful programme from a highly-talented player."

B Minor Sonata by Liszt
Keith Bruce, Vox Carnyx, January 2023

" Liszt's B Minor Sonata - a performance which was both a technical and emotional triumph. Lukinov commanded the audience’s attention and held it captive for the thirty minutes of compelling, impassioned, and yes, beautiful, music which filled the space between them.
His playing of this technically very challenging piece was riveting. He brought to it an overarching grace that subsumed the sense of wonder at how it was being achieved. He was there to take his audience on an emotional journey via a magnificent piece of music, and he did just that. It was thrilling and deeply affecting.
Robert Schumann’s series of Symphonic Etudes - Lukinov made a beautiful whole of the differing passions, seeming transported by them as he played. His obvious love of the music was infectious.
It is rare for a classical music audience at the Festival Centre to show its appreciation by augmenting applause with the stomping of feet on the sounding-board-floor of the raked seating. Lukinov responded with a perfectly chosen encore: Tchaikovsky’s Meditation."

John Hargreaves, Market Drayton Festival, February 2023

"Alexander Scriabiin's Waltz, op 38 - the fact that Lukinov chose it as his lockdown project says a lot about his exceptional talents.
In many ways it’s the ideal piece to showcase Lukinov’s remarkable pianism, from his supple negotiation of the work’s complex layered rhythms to his poise and clarity in its simpler passages, and of course the joyful power he unleashes in its bravura climax."

David Kettle, the Scotsman, June 2021

"Liszt Sonata B Minor
I heard Nikita a month ago in a memorable recital at that Mecca for great young talent that is St Mary’s Perivale. A Prokofiev that sang with such colour, shape and style. Not even that had prepared me for this extraordinary performance of the Liszt Sonata that he played in his New Artists recital for the Keyboard Trust.
I was overwhelmed by a performance ... as one rhetorical phrase follows another without any regard to the very precise dynamic markings. All this was scrupulously noted by Nikita but also with a sense of colour and delicacy that allowed him in some passages to split the left hand from the right for a split second that is the secret of great pianists in their search for the perfect legato on an instrument that only has hammers and strings! I have never been so enthralled as with the final three chords that seemed to disappear into infinity with a sensitivity to sound that was quite extraordinary. The final deep bass note almost inaudible as it had been at the opening ’p’, sotto voce Liszt asks at the opening as Nikita allowed the ominous whispered bass notes to cast their spell.
There was a clarity to Nikita’s playing. The three chords before the Andante sostenuto were as miraculous as the final three chords I have already spoken about. The Quasi Adagio, that in Richter’s hands lasted a miraculous eternity, were here played with such aristocratic sentiment but with an underlying forward movement that was the absolute hallmark that I remember of Agosti’s playing. The great throbbing chords in which passions are aroused was a miracle of control and brought us so emotionally to a climax which Liszt does, in fact, mark fff.
Nikita does have something extra special which is the ability to look at the score with an intelligence and freshness away from tradition.

Scriabin, Valse op.38
Such sumptuous sounds in Nikita’s hands but what passion both restrained and fearless with a wonderful sense of improvised freedom.

Prokofiev: 6 pieces from Cinderella Op 102
Prokofiev of such beauty never since Rubinstein’s magical Visions Fugitives have I ever put those two words together until listening to this young man’s Cinderella suite today. In Nikita’s hands it was a wondrous story indeed full of colour, imagination and a sense of line. Someone who has the ‘gift of the gab’ and that can keep you enthralled with the story he has to tell. I recommend that you listen to this exemplary performance of a Prokofiev that can be made to SING!"

Christopher Axworthy, Russian Art and Culture

"fulfilled his promotional material as 'one of the most exciting pianists of a younger generation residing in Scotland.' - from the light and gentle pianissimo opening to the dramatic and virtuosic passages of the later movements....expressive and thoughtful performance... the audience was left almost speechless although 'mind-blowing', genius' and 'terrific' were... heard."

Mid Argyll Arts Association, Argyll Advertiser, November 2022

"extraordinary breadth and freedom of imagination. Performance of breathtaking beauty "

Gramophone Magazine