Evgeny Kissin

Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin is one of the most distinguished musicians of his generation, revered the world over by audiences and critics alike for the virtuosity and eloquence of his pianism and the imagination and insight of his interpretations. An acclaimed artist, he is always in high demand by the world’s leading orchestras and conductors of the calibre of Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, and Sir Antonio Pappano. Kissin was born in Moscow in 1971. Endowed with a truly rare gift for music, he began to play by ear and improvise on the piano soon after his second birthday, though his passion for the instrument was fully ignited even before that. At the age of six, he enrolled at Moscow’s Gnessin School, an elite establishment for young musicians, where he received lessons from Anna Pavlovna Kantor, who became his only teacher. Kissin’s progress was such that he gave his first full performance with orchestra at the age of ten, making his debut with Mozart’s Piano Concerto in D minor, K466; he presented his first recital in Moscow the following year. His international breakthrough came in 1984, when he performed Chopin’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory with the Moscow State Philharmonic conducted by Dmitri Kitayenko. The live recording of Kissin’s interpretations of the Chopin concertos, released on the Melodia label, confirmed the maturity of the twelve-year-old pianist’s musicianship, and introduced him to an audience beyond the Soviet Union. He made his debut in Eastern Europe in 1985, toured Japan the following year, and appeared in Western Europe for the first time at the 1987 Berlin Festival. In 1988, he gave a private performance for Herbert von Karajan, who then invited him to perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the orchestra’s forthcoming New Year’s Eve Concert in Berlin. Deutsche Grammophon’s recording, released in 1989 within weeks of Karajan’s death, was immediately recognised as a major milestone in the work’s recorded history. Kissin gave his first performance at the BBC Proms in 1990, making him the first pianist to give a solo recital at the festival since its foundation in 1985. He made his North American debut soon after, performing Chopin’s two piano concertos with the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta and opened Carnegie Hall’s centennial season in the same year with a spectacular debut recital. The exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist has been recognised with many prestigious awards and prizes. He received the International Prize of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in 1991 and became Musical America’s youngest Instrumentalist of the Year in 1995. Two years later Kissin received the Triumph Award for his outstanding contribution to Russian culture, among the Russian Federation’s highest cultural honours. His other honours include the Shostakovich Award, Honorary Membership of London’s Royal Academy of Music, the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize, the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Award , and honorary doctorates from the Manhattan School of Music, the University of Hong Kong, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. His collection of autobiographical writings, Memoirs and Reflections, was published in 2017.