Evgeny Kissin

With his extraordinary virtuosity and profound poetic depth, Evgeny Kissin has become one of the leading artists of his generation, both among audiences and music critics. He has collaborated with many of the world’s great conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Daniel Barenboim, Lorin Maazel, and Seiji Ozawa, as well as with all the major orchestras around the world.

Born into a Russian-Jewish family in Moscow, Kissin began playing and improvising on the piano at the age of two. At six, he enrolled at the Moscow Gnessin School of Music for gifted children. At ten, he made his orchestral debut, and just two years later, he gained international recognition with a series of LP recordings of concertos with the Moscow State Philharmonic. In 1985, at the age of fourteen, he performed abroad for the first time, and in December 1988, his performance with the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan was broadcast worldwide as part of the orchestra’s New Year’s concert.

Over the course of Kissin’s career, he has received numerous prestigious music awards. In 1992, he was a special guest at the Grammy Awards ceremony. Two years later, he was named Youngest Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America, and in 1997, he became the youngest pianist ever to give a recital at the BBC Proms. He has received honorary doctorates from the Manhattan School of Music, as well as universities in Hong Kong, Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva. He is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London.

In addition to his Russian citizenship, Kissin also holds British and Israeli nationalities. Since 2017, he has lived in Prague. He is an outspoken critic of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.