Piano
Evgeny Kissin
Debut at Luzerner Sinfonieorchester on January 23rd 2023
A pianist with unusual musicality
The Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin is one of the outstanding musicians of his generation. He is admired by audiences and critics all over the world for his virtuoso and expressive playing and interpretations.
Evgeny Kissin was born in Moscow in October 1971. Gifted with quite unusual musicality, he began playing and improvising on the piano by ear shortly after his second birthday, and even before that he had been full of enthusiasm for the instrument.
He first performed in Eastern Europe in 1985, toured Japan the following year and made his first appearance in Western Europe in 1987 as part of the Berlin Festival. In the summer of 1988, he played for Herbert von Karajan, who promptly invited him to appear as the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 at the Berlin Philharmonic’s upcoming New Year’s Eve concert. The recording of the performance, released by Deutsche Grammophon in 1989 just a few weeks after Karajan’s death, was immediately recognized as a milestone in the recording history of the work.
His discography includes a Grammy-winning album of solo works by Scriabin, Medtner and Stravinsky; all of Beethoven’s piano concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Colin Davis; Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Vladimir Ashkenazy, also Grammy-winning; and albums of solo works by Brahms, Chopin and Schumann. There are also a number of important early recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, including critically acclaimed performances with the Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan and Claudio Abbado. In June 2017, Kissin signed a new exclusive contract with the yellow label.
Evgeny Kissin has received numerous prestigious awards and prizes. He received the International Prize of the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in 1991 and was Musical America’s youngest “Instrumentalist of the Year” in 1995. Other honors include the Shostakovich Prize (2003), honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London (2005), the Herbert von Karajan Music Prize (2005), the Premio Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (2007) and honorary doctorates from the Manhattan School of Music (2001), University of Hong Kong (2009), Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2010) and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2014). His collection of autobiographical writings “Memoirs and Reflections” was published in 2017.
Evgeny Kissin Rachmaninoff Prelude Op 3 No 2 in C Sharp minor
